Local Weather History: White Christmas Frequency in Greater Lafayette | News

Below is an early image of Purdue University in a blanket of snow in the winter of 1878-79. Further research has shown that this probably occurred near Christmas 1878 and NOT in the winter of 1876-77. The snow depth on Christmas was 10 inches after a major winter storm occurred just days before Christmas.

How often do we see a white Christmas or actual snow fall at Christmas? Well, it varies from decade to decade, research has shown.

I looked at all of our fairly consistent weather records in the Lafayette area. Now the patchy weather data goes back to references to the mild winter of 1826-27 and 1827-28, the harsh winter of 1830-31, and the tornado of 1833. However, continuous daily weather recording began in Ellis’ diaries in 1859, about 9 miles east-southeast of Purdue Airport.

Now Christmas 1859 is missing from his records and all of 1860 has been lost, but good, solid data for Christmas snowfall begins in 1861. These dates were used until Dr. Huston set up daily weather observation devices at Purdue, with recordings beginning in late 1879 to early 1880, published in the Indiana Monthly Crop Bulletin.

These observations were used until 1943, when daily observations began near Purdue Airport. The airport’s snowfall data was used until snowfall data was discontinued there in the late 1990s, when manual observations were discontinued and new automated observations were made via the new ASOS system.

The Purdue Ag Farm (which I was reluctant to use due to the frequently observed discrepancies in totals between this location 6 miles northwest of West Lafayette and the airport) was then used as it was the most profitable NWS COOP station until a CoCoRaHs Observers made constant snowfall observations in the mid-2000s between the airport and the former Ellis farm site. This observer was selected due to its proximity to historical observation sites to provide a tight level of consistent, stationary data collection. This ensures the integrity of observations over a long period of time. It is extremely rare for all data within 15 kilometers of the sites to date back to the Civil War.

First, I examined and determined the snow depth on Christmas morning. Knowing that a true white Christmas occurs with 1″ or more snowfall on the ground either at sunrise or in the morning, I took all mornings with a depth of 1″ or more and arranged them in descending order below:

I then researched the Christmases where the snow actually fell during the Christmas hours and made a list of all the snowfalls that occurred during the holiday.

So it could be that just a trace or 1- to 8-inch flakes fall on Christmas Day. In this case, I also included all recorded track sets.

It’s actually possible that there was, say, 5 inches of snow on the ground on Christmas morning or day. However, there may not have been any snow on Christmas Day. A good example is 1878. There had just been a major winter storm a few days earlier, but the bitter cold prevented the snow from melting, so the depth was still 10 inches on Christmas morning and day.

As for the snowfall on Christmas Day, 50 flakes out of 163 fell during the day, so at least a trace was recorded.

This means that on 30.7% of all Christmases since 1861, some amount of flakes fell on the holiday.

Looking at white Christmases by decade:

Looking at the number of flakes actually falling on Christmas Day per decade:

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