Happy first day of winter! With our first snow winter system out of the way and its only a few days until Christmas, I thought I would go over a common question meteorologists are asked. What are the chances of a white Christmas this year? This is a map by NOAA with percentage of a white Christmas for any particular location in the US. The definition they use is "having an inch or more of snow on the ground on Christmas Day." The data set also used 1981-2012 climate normals which are the three decade averages of the climate data. Most of central Indiana including Kokomo has around a 26-40% chance of a white Christmas any particular year. Now what are our odds for a White Christmas looking this year? Here are the 6-10 day outlooks for both temperature and precipitation. The temperature looks to be above normal and the precip looks to be close to average on the above average side. The above image is the 2 meter temperature anomaly of Christmas Day from the American models ensemble (GEFS.) Pretty much the entire eastern continental US is above average on surface temperature. And for fun here are the projected highs on Christmas Day. Right now my prediction of seeing a white Christmas is around 20% or less, but I feel the chances are getting slimmer and slimmer.
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