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It’s that time of year again Season the cold is increasingKnitted jumpers are coming out, and the nation is dreaming about one During Christmas,
but that hoping for snowflakes Waterfalls from the sky may have to wait a little longer, as future projections from the Met Office suggest the chances of a whiteout on Christmas Day are very low.
Tom Crabtree, deputy chief forecaster at the Met Office, said: “High pressure is expected to build over the next week, bringing dry and mild conditions over the Christmas period.
“Although temperature Will fall, they are not falling. There is a possibility of frost at night, and some mist And fog is possible at some places, but chances of extreme cold appear low.
“Falling temperatures are likely to bring some wintry rain to the east, but it is too early to discern details on any specific days over the Christmas period.”
The Met Office said the threshold for a “White Christmas” requires a single patch of snow to be seen falling on Christmas Day, anywhere in the UK.
Last year, the Met Office predicted a “grey Christmas”, with mild temperatures accompanied by rain and cloud cover.
The last time the UK technically had a White Christmas was in 2023, when 11 percent of weather stations reported snow falling, but none reported snow accumulation on the ground.
The last time there was widespread snowfall on Christmas was in 2010. That was the UK’s whitest Christmas on record, with 83 per cent of stations recording snow on the ground.
More than half of all Christmas Day snows since 1960 have met their limit, with at least 5 percent of weather stations reporting snow on the big day in nearly half of those years.
However, the probability of actual ice formation is low: it has happened only four times, in 1981, 1995, 2009, and 2010.
In most of the United Kingdom, Christmas is just the beginning of the period when snowfall is likely and according to the Met Office we are more likely to see snowfall in January and February than in December.
Snow lasts for an average of 3 days in December, while there are 3.3 days in January, 3.4 days in February, and 1.9 days in March (1991 – 2020 long-term average period).
Met Office data shows which areas have experienced a ‘White Christmas’ from 1960 to 2024. They occur most in the Highlands, where the highest number of snowy Christmases occurred, with 175, followed by Aberdeenshire with 92 cases.
White Christmas was more prevalent in the 18th and 19th centuries, even more so before the calendar change in 1752, which effectively moved Christmas Day back 12 days.
Climate change has also caused average temperatures on land and sea to rise, reducing the chances of a typically white Christmas.