How Likely is a White Christmas in Your City?

[Henry]

With all due respect to Bing Crosby, some cities may not get a White Christmas after all. The slideshow is accessed here, but thanks to the deslide app, this is the complete list and their chances of it, from highest to lowest:

• Duluth, MN: 92
• Bozeman, MT: 76
• Minneapolis, MN: 74
• Madison, WI: 66
• Burlington, VT: 65
• Grand Rapids, MI: 59
• Buffalo, NY: 56
• Salt Lake City, UT: 53
• Milwaukee, WI: 48
• Albany, NY: 46
• Cleveland, OH: 44
• Denver, CO: 40
• Chicago, IL: 38
• Detroit, MI: 38 (tie)
• Cheyenne, WY: 37
• Pittsburgh, PA: 32
• Altoona, PA: 31
• Hartford, CT: 29
• Grand Junction, CO: 27
• Kansas City, MO: 23
• St. Louis, MO: 21
• Boston, MA: 19
• Cincinnati, OH: 19 (tie)
• New York, NY: 12
• Baltimore, MD: 10
• Philadelphia, PA: 7.9
• Washington, DC: 7.6
• Richmond, VA: 6.3
• Seattle, WA: 4.5
• Albuquerque, NM: 3.9
• Abilene, TX: 2.4
• Nashville, TN: 2.2
• Portland, OR: 1.7
• Charlotte, NC: 1.6
• Atlanta, GA: 1.3
• Columbia, SC: 0.8
• Dallas, TX: 0.6
• Charleston, SC: 0.5
• Hattiesburg, MS: 0.1
• Las Vegas, NV: 0.1 (tie)
• Tucson, AZ: 0.1 (tie)
• Albany, GA: 0
• Austin, TX: 0 (tie)
• Birmingham, AL: 0 (tie)
• Fresno, CA: 0 (tie)
• Fort Myers, FL: 0 (tie)
• Houston, TX: 0 (tie)
• Los Angeles, CA: 0 (tie)
• New Orleans, LA: 0 (tie)
• Phoenix, AZ: 0 (tie)
• San Antonio, TX: 0 (tie)
• San Diego, CA: 0 (tie)
• San Francisco, CA: 0 (tie)

[hotdogPi]

I'm interested in the number for Flagstaff, AZ.

[Max Rockatansky]

I'm interested in the number for Flagstaff, AZ.

You'll get something with the 100 inches of snow the city averages a year.  How much really depends on how much the temperature swings during the daylight hours.  I want to say the average December high is 43F. 

[Desert Man]

Palm Springs area - zero. We had like 5 white New Years' days (Dec 30-Jan 2) in our 150 years of weather record history. The most recent were 1978-79 and 1984-85 (the coming ice age later became global warning). If we're having global climate change - it means we get hotter (and more humid) summers and who knows, higher risk of winter storms in the desert, which can get colder (esp over 2000 feet) than the relatively mild LA Basin and the So CA coast. It would be cool if we had a white Christmas at all, but drive to the San Jacinto and San Bernardino Mountains (Idyllwild or Anza, and Lake Arrowhead or Big Bear Lake) if you want to ever experience a white Christmas within So Cal in your life time.

[kkt]

I'm interested in the number for Flagstaff, AZ.

You'll get something with the 100 inches of snow the city averages a year.  How much really depends on how much the temperature swings during the daylight hours.  I want to say the average December high is 43F. 

Snow in the winter is common, but the snowstorms are spaced widely enough for it to melt in between.

[briantroutman]

With all due respect to Bing Crosby...

Maybe the song "White Christmas"  isn't any less apropos, though. It's not a song about enjoying a white Christmas but rather a lament about being somewhere sunny and warm and wishing you were somewhere snowy for the holiday. There's a stanza that's often omitted from the beginning of the song:

The sun is shining,
The grass is green,
The orange and palm trees sway.
There's never been such a day,
In Beverly Hills, L.A.
But it's December the 24th,
And I'm longing to be up North.


Now as to the list, I'm not sure what criteria were used for inclusion. I wonder why Altoona made the list, but more populous and more notoriously snowy Erie did not. (Or for that matter, Scranton or Allentown–both of which surely would have ranked somewhere.

[formulanone]

Why is Albany, Georgia on the list...to compare it with Albany, New York? There’s no reason to put Fort Meyers (or anything south of I-4) on there, although maybe they’ll get a micro-dusting about once every 30 years. They might as well have had a link to the fifty cities which are unlikely to get anything other than some morning frost.

Huntsville gets a few flurries around that week, but the last two Xmases have been warm.

[ET21]

71 of 131 years (54%) Christmas' measured snowfall per NWS Chicago. I'd agree with our rank, I've had a majority of White Christmas', but there was a decent block of years of bare ground.

[Roadgeekteen]

I am very surprised that Birmingham never got at least a bit of snow.

[Max Rockatansky]

I'm interested in the number for Flagstaff, AZ.

You'll get something with the 100 inches of snow the city averages a year.  How much really depends on how much the temperature swings during the daylight hours.  I want to say the average December high is 43F. 

Snow in the winter is common, but the snowstorms are spaced widely enough for it to melt in between.

Usually it was pretty easy to plan travel in Arizona to the Mogollon Rim.  When I worked up there usually you had a solid weeks notice that a storm was coming.  The big storms were 20 inches or more, I actually got snow bound in Show Low for a couple days.  Out in California it's way less predictable with the Sierras spitting out storms at the Sierras and Coast Ranges.  I'll probably be a solid 2 hours from 3-5 of snow at 6,000 feet from Fresno all winter. 

[jakeroot]

I am very surprised that Birmingham never got at least a bit of snow.

I'm surprised that it's zero. I would have expected maybe 0.5. The city doesn't get much snow, but they at least get some snow on an average basis, unlike the rest of the zeros.

[OracleUsr]

Doesn't matter where I am, the chance of a White Christmas is 100%.





My last name is White

[jakeroot]

Doesn't matter where I am, the chance of a White Christmas is 100%.
...
My last name is White

Before I read the second sentence, I thought you were making a dirty joke.

[SignGeek101]

100%. Last year we got into the first few days of December without snow on the ground, a pretty rare occurrence. This year... there was snow on the ground not even a week after Halloween.

Doesn't matter where I am, the chance of a White Christmas is 100%.
...
My last name is White

Before I read the second sentence, I thought you were making a dirty joke.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

With all due respect to Bing Crosby, some cities may not get a White Christmas after all. The slideshow is accessed here, but thanks to the deslide app, this is the complete list and their chances of it, from highest to lowest:

• Duluth, MN: 92

Yeah baby. 

[Eth]

In the increasingly rare event that it actually does snow in Atlanta proper (or at least anywhere south of GA 120), it's usually gonna be in the January-March timeframe. I think I've seen snow here in December once in 30 years.

[MNHighwayMan]

I'm pretty sure Des Moines has only had one in the six years I've lived here, which, as a native Minnesotan, depresses me.

[jakeroot]

I'm pretty sure Des Moines has only had one in the six years I've lived here, which, as a native Minnesotan, depresses me.

From a layman's perspective, you'd think Des Moines would have more white Christmas'. I guess, being out in the plains, it's subject to massive temperature swings that make it difficult.

[jeffandnicole]

And if you want to look at the calendar, Christmas is only 4 days into winter.  Since it's not really the coldest time of year, it stands to reason that it's quite possible for areas that do get snow won't have it on Christmas.

In my region (Philly), it's likely we'll see some snow in December and even November, but with average highs still in the 40's it usually won't stick around.

In recent memory, I remember only 2 significant December snowfalls in my area: 

A surprise early December storm where an inch or so was expected, and we wound up with 8 inches.  This was also the only Eagles game that I ate the tickets, as I was called out to DOT to work the snow trucks.  The game on TV was awesome to watch, but conditions for the fans at the game were miserable.  This snow easily melted prior to Christmas though.

A heavy snowfall the Saturday before Christmas many years ago (when not a lot of shopping was done via internet), which shut everything down on one of the busiest shopping days of the season.  A very intense effort to clear the roads and parking lots went well, and by Sunday people could resume their normal shopping. That year was definitely a white Christmas with plenty of snow still on the ground.

[jakeroot]

I have personally experienced exactly one white Christmas in Western Washington. It was in 2008, and I was in seventh grade. We had over a foot of snow on the ground about a week leading up to Christmas. A foot of snow on the ground is unusual by itself. The fact that it was right before Christmas was pretty cool for someone my age, who was able to skip the last four days of school before our Christmas vacation (classes were cancelled) and I didn't have to worry about making it in to work (I was 13).

I had a cycling assignment for my gym class that I had to complete the day before the last day before winter vacation. I completed in the snow, which was a disaster. Didn't end up turning it in until after New Years.

[cjk374]

Christmas will be celebrated in hell with feet of snow on the ground there before we ever get an inch of snow on the ground here on Christmas day. 

[Max Rockatansky]

Christmas will be celebrated in hell with feet of snow on the ground there before we ever get an inch of snow on the ground here on Christmas day. 

Didn't even Miami once get some snow in the first half the 20th century?  I want to say the only place in the Lower 48 States that never has had recorded snow fall is the Florida Keys.

[Rothman]

Boston is at 19%?  Seems very low, especially since Albany is at 46%.

[index]

I live in the Charlotte, NC area, and I've technically had a White Christmas before, around 2010 or 2009. There wasn't snow on the ground in the morning, but by 8 PM, there was accumulating snow.

[21stCenturyRoad]

Christmas will be celebrated in hell with feet of snow on the ground there before we ever get an inch of snow on the ground here on Christmas day. 

Didn't even Miami once get some snow in the first half the 20th century?  I want to say the only place in the Lower 48 States that never has had recorded snow fall is the Florida Keys.

Miami once received snowfall in January 1977, but it melted as soon as it hit the ground.