Are you dreaming of a White Christmas this year?
While it's a little far out to predict, Meteorologist Nathan Kitchens has a look at our historical chances of snow on the ground on Christmas Day.
In order to see a white Christmas, there must be at least 1" of snow on the ground on Christmas morning. History can tell us just how likely it is to see that official white Christmas in West Central Ohio. The northern half of the state has anywhere from a 25 to 40% chance based on the last 30 years. No surprise, you have to go north of the state to find those chances of at least 50% or greater. Once you head south of I-70, the chance drops to under 25%.
Snowfall data for our area goes back to 1949. Through that entire span of years, roughly 37% of them had a white Christmas. While that sounds like a reasonable chance, the recent trends are noteworthy. From 1991 to 2020, a white Christmas only happened 27% of the time. Over the past decade, only one white Christmas was recorded!
Looking at each decade from 1950 to now, the 1960s stand out. That period had a white Christmas 60% of the time. Otherwise, that number generally ranged from 30 to 40% until the steep decline over the past decade.
Looking at Christmas Day extremes, 2004 had 9" of snow on the ground. Temperatures soared to the 60s in 1982, while the record low of -17° was reached only a year later.
While it is still too early to give a detailed forecast for this year, the models show a fairly quiet pattern in the days leading up to Christmas. There are signals for rain to light snow hitting around the 23rd, but the chance of an actual White Christmas appears very low at this point.
