Are you dreaming of a white Christmas? Snow is likely in these US states, according to NOAA climate data

The countdown to the holidays is on, and if you’re dreaming of a white Christmas, NOAA has a list of the places where it’s most likely.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) published a report This month climate data is used to show where it is most likely to snow on Christmas Day.

The data consists of averages over the last three decades of various types of observations. This includes both monthly and daily normals of precipitation, temperature, snowfall, heating and cooling degree days, growing degree days, and frost and freeze data, spanning nearly 15,000 different observation locations. Most of them are owned and operated by NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS).

So what constitutes a “white Christmas”? According to NOAA, there should be at least an inch (0.03 meters) of snow on the ground on December 25th. In the map below the information comes from US climate normals from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). The different colors represent the likelihood of which regions have the best and worst chances of a white Christmas, according to measurements taken on Christmas Day in the United States between 1991 and 2020. Unfortunately, if your location is in a dark gray shaded area, you may need to move to normally colder locations as the chance is less than 10%. The best-case scenario for snow on the ground on Christmas Day would be in a region highlighted in white, where the chance exceeds 90%.

Gray map of the United States with blue to white shading in the northern half to indicate snowfall

(Image credit: NOAA/NCEI)

But just because the historical data provides confidence in the places where there will be snow, it will all depend on what Mother Nature has in store on Christmas Day and in the lead-up to it this year.

If there is a heavy snowstorm the day before Christmas, places that don’t normally have snow can end up with a Christmas morning of white-covered grass. In 2009, for example, a cold snap in North Texas brought snow accumulations just before the holidays. It stayed on the ground until Christmas day, This was a first for the region since 1926. And in 2023, Portland, Maine experienced a wet and non-white Christmas with warm air across the region, negating the more likely chances of being a winter wonderland.

May the magical omens of the holidays be in your favor this year so that your dreams of a white Christmas can come true!

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