Dreaming of a White Christmas? History and the current models suggest an uphill battle

There has recently been plenty of discussion on the Netweather community about a lack of wintry festive (Christmas-New Year) periods in recent years. This year looks “touch and go” because we will see some north-westerlies between now and Christmas, which have potential to bring snow for some, but it looks probable that around Christmas we will see the Azores High move eastwards to the south of Britain. This would leave Britain in a mild west to south-westerly flow with grey and drizzly weather for the west, though potentially some sunshine for sheltered eastern, especially north-eastern, parts of Britain. 

The weather on Christmas Day will hinge on how quickly that anticyclone moves into southern areas. Some earlier runs from the ECMWF had Britain under quite a potent northerly blast around the Christmas period, but the chances of a white Christmas have receded somewhat over the past few days, with the medium-range forecast models falling into greater agreement on the mild west to south-westerly type probably establishing by Christmas Day. Regardless of how things pan out around Christmas, it looks likely to be predominantly mild as we head towards the New Year.

However, Christmas Day is still 11 days away so we cannot yet rule out a shift in the model outputs towards delaying the onset of milder air and increasing the chances of colder weather around or just before Christmas. Stay up to date with the Christmas forecast with frequent updates here.

Wintry festive periods - a dying trend? I don't think I've ever started my own thread in my 10 year + Netweather history so here goes! Following on from Damianslaw's great thread on Xmas memories, I thought I'd drill into further detail on how common a wintry period has been in the last 30 years or so during this period. From around 19... Netweather Community Weather Forum

A look back at wintry Christmas-New Year periods up until 2010

White Christmases were commonplace in the 1960s, when some regions had a white Christmas in terms of snow on the ground in 1962, 1964, 1968 and 1970, and to a limited extent in 1966. Many of the years that didn’t have a white Christmas had a wintry spell shortly after Christmas, as happened in 1961, 1965, 1967 and 1969. In 1962, cold snowy weather especially set in on the 26th/27th December and led into the exceptionally cold months of January and February 1963.

White Christmases were rare between 1971 and 1992, with widespread lying snow on Christmas Day in only one year (1981). Nonetheless a number of these years had a post-Christmas cold spell, including 1971, 1978, 1979, 1984, and also December 1990 ended very snowy in northern Scotland. The Christmas-New Year period of 1992 was not snowy but it turned very cold for much of the UK with plenty of anticyclonic gloom (a common weather type in recent weeks) and freezing fog.

Then between 1993 and 2010, cold snowy spells in the period from Christmas to New Year were common again, despite a clear warming trend in the climate over that period. Snow on the ground was most widespread on Christmas Day in the record breaking cold December of 2010.

Snow in Grimsby in 2010 - uploaded to the Netweather community by Richard Lake

It was also quite widespread in 1995 and 2009, and to a lesser extent in 1993, 2001 and 2004. Some other years in this period had widespread falling sleet and snow on Christmas Day but not generally lying at low levels. There were notable post-Christmas cold snowy spells in 1996, 2000 and 2005 also, and in 1994, following a generally mild and changeable December, northerlies set in on New Year’s Eve and some regions had lying snow on New Year’s Day 1995. 

The main reason for the run of wintry Christmas-New Year periods during the 1993-2010 period was a high frequency of Greenland blocking highs in late December during the period, which left Britain exposed to northerly winds. Many of those winters, particularly in the 1990s and early to mid-2000s, were predominantly mild, changeable and dominated by westerly and south-westerly winds, but it became traditional to have Greenland blocking highs around or shortly after Christmas, giving at least one or two northerly outbreaks. Many of us were born in the 1980s or 1990s and would have got used to post-Christmas often being snowy from an early age, which would make the shift to milder Christmas-New Year periods since 2010 particularly noticeable.

Wintry festive periods have been rare from 2011 onwards

The weather between Christmas and New Year since 2011 has tended to be mild. 2014 was a notable exception, when some areas, particularly the Midlands and Yorkshire, had some snow on Boxing Day and some wintry showers on the 27th, and a large majority of the UK had a spell of sunny frosty weather afterwards. 2017 had a frontal snow event for many regions on 29 December, mainly from Yorkshire northwards. And the period from Christmas to New Year 2020 was generally cold with some wintry spells, although snow on the ground was not as widespread as in many of the years from 1993 to 2010. There was also some frost and freezing fog around in some regions post-Christmas 2016, mainly in England, but no snow. December 2022 had a prolonged cold spell up until the 18th, but between Christmas and New Year it was very mild. 

Christmases 2012 and especially 2015 were notable for a rather different reason: frequent rain and flooding. The record breaking mild December of 2015, which especially contrasted with the exceptionally cold December of 2010, had a very wet Christmas Day for many of us and this meant that flooding was widespread on Boxing Day. It looks unlikely that heavy rain and flooding will be a widespread issue around Christmas 2024, with the forecast models pointing towards high pressure building from the south-west towards Christmas this year.

Christmas Weather Forecast | Will there be a white Xmas? Will it be a white Christmas? Find out with our Christmas weather forecasts for the UK. Netweather