Whether you're a fan of snow or not, many of us wish for at least some snow on Christmas Day.
Just because December is getting off to a mild start this year, it doesn't necessarily mean your dreams of a white Christmas will melt away. Although Santa's visit to central Indiana is still a couple of weeks away, we can look at our historical chances of a white Christmas.
Traditionally, a white Christmas is defined as having 1 inch or more of snow on the ground on Christmas Day. For the Indianapolis area, that means our chance is only about 28%. Those chances increase as you travel north and decrease to the south.
If you want to improve your odds a little bit, you can also consider a white Christmas as any amount of snow either falling OR on the ground Christmas Day. When you slice it that way, the chance of our snow dreams coming true jumps to nearly 60%!
Last Christmas was a bit unusual. Not only did we not have any snow at all, but highs in the lower 60s made for the second warmest Christmas Day on record. On the flip side, the most snow to fall in Indy on Christmas Day was 5.9 inches in 1909. Of more recent memory, the most snow we've ever had on the ground was 9 inches in 2004.
We're still a little too far out to know much about our chances of a white Christmas this year. The trend we can see takes us to just a few days before the holiday.
Those models suggest an overall cooling trend to below average temperatures. It also looks like we'll take a break from our damp weather pattern. We're trending toward below average precipitation leading up to Christmas Day.
For now, we'll keep dreaming of a white Christmas in hopes our dreams come true.
