Vermont Christmases Seem To Be Getting Less White

Snow falls from pine trees in West Rutland, Vermont on Christmas
morning, 2017. It was the only Christmas this decade when
Vermont received a decent amount of fresh snow. 

Vermont is the land of white Christmases, so goes common "knowledge."

The 1954 movie "White Christmas" cemented the idea that Vermont is a beautiful Christmas snowscape, reliable for the twinkling lights glinting beneath the snow and frost in our Currier and Ives-style quaint villages.

But at least in the state's valleys and warmer spots, Vermont is somewhat less what than it might have been decades ago.

The data from Burlington this past decade does show that the chances of white Christmases has been iffy in recent years.  Granted, Burlington is one of the warmer and drier parts of the state, which means there's more likely to be snow on the ground away from the Champlain Valley.

According to the National Climatic Data Center, Burlington has a 77 percent chance of a white Christmas and 13 percent chance of having at least ten inches on the ground.

The decade now ending fell short of that average.

Since 2010, including forecasts for this year, snow was/is on the ground seven out of 10 Christmases, which gives a 70 percent chance of having snow on the ground for the holiday. That's seven percentage points lower than average. Close but no cigar.

This stat is based on a forecast that it will not snow in Vermont by tomorrow morning. The ground in Burlington is pretty much bare, though snow remains in some parts of the state.

Even that 70 percent chance of snow stat is deceiving. Only five of those Christmases had 2 inches or more of snow on the ground. And one of those two-inch years - 2014 -  was during a thaw, so the ground was half bare on Christmas morning and had even had less snow by afternoon.

Only three Christmases had at least six inches of snow on the ground, which means those were unequivocally white.  The deepest snow cover was in 2017, with seven inches, so we fell short of having at minimum one Christmas per decade with at least ten inches of powder on the ground.

We also fell short of the NCDC stat that says five out of ten Christmases should have at least six inches of snow on the ground. This decade, there were only three such years.

By the way, it almost never snowed on Christmas Day in Burlington during this decade. The only year with measureable new snow was 2017, when 3.5 inches fell.  Trace amounts fell on four other Christmases.

If you average out the temperatures for the Christmases over the decade just ending, it was a little on the warm side. For 2019, I'm using the forecast high and low.  If you average out the decade, the mean Christmas temperature was 26.5 which is four degrees above normal.

There were some cold Christmases, but they were outweighed by warm ones. Two of those Christmases - 2014 and 2015 - had highs in the 50s.  In 2015, the high temperature in Burlington on Christmas Eve was  68 degrees, the hottest December temperature on record.

That year, last minute Christmas shoppers strolled Burlington's Church Street Marketplace in t-shirts and shorts.

The coldest Christmas this decades was in 2013, which had a low of zero degrees.

In the record books going back to the late 1880s, the hottest Christmas was in 1964, when it reached 62 degrees. No snow on the ground that holiday!

The coldest Christmas was in 1980, and it was brutal!  The low temperature was 25 degrees, and the high was minus 5, and that occured just after midnight.  Strong north winds made wind chills unbearable. On the bright side, there was nine inches of snow on the ground that year.

On Christmas Day, 1970, there was a whopping 32 inches of snow on the ground in Burlington. This was during the snowiest month on record.

The most new snow on Christmas Day was in 1978, when 16.9 inches fell on December 25 in Burlington.

Surprise White Christmas In And Around Vermont; Christmas Travel To Be Good. But....

At work at Gardener's Supply this Christmas Eve morning, looking
out the window past the amaryllis to the unexpected snow
globe outside

UPDATE 1:30 P.M. DECEMBER 24

Well, we have a botched weather forecast to report this afternoon, but at least it was off in a way that many people like.

I mentioned this morning there would be very little snowfall in Vermont this morning. And if it did snow, it would be mostly in the southern part of the state.

Then a Christmas miracle of sorts happened. The weak, wimpy storm that was supposed to cause the paltry few snowflakes in southern Vermont had more oomph than we thought.

Some energy in the atmosphere combined with a ribbon of moisture floating around northern New York and heading into Vermont contributed to the unexpected snow.

This isn't a blockbuster storm by any means, but now pretty nearly all parts of Vermont have a dusting to two inches of new snow on the ground. There might even be a couple spot three inch totals. Enough to get us a white, or at least whitish Christmas.

Which was, again, unexpected, but oh well.

The only drawback is that the roads are a bit iffy if you're traveling today around the state or running last minute errands. So just be careful on the highways and streets.

This little area of disturbed weather is zipping right along, so the snow should shut off pretty quickly this evening. It still looks like it's going to be a rather sunny, but seasonably chilly day on Christmas. It will certainly be cold enough for the snow to stick around.

This post's previous discussion is below, and includes the underestimation of how much snow Vermont would get today:

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION:


 A large storm in the middle of the nation will cause widespread zones
of snow, ice, rain and wind by Thursday

A lot of people are traveling to and fro today and for the next few days for the Christmas holiday.

Locally in New England, it's pretty much smooth sailing until Thursday night, when a storm will begin to make things messy. 
A large storm will make things tricky at various times from coast to coast starting today.

The Christmas Eve action will begin today with a large area of rain and snow across the west and Rockies through Christmas Day. There will certainly be a white Christmas for most areas that are high enough in elevation to escape the rain.

This storm will really begin to blossom Wednesday, the day after Christmas, across the Plains.

Snow will spread across the north, an ugly wintry mix will hit some of the central Plains (think Iowa and Nebraska). Rain and thunderstorms will hit further south. Some severe storms are possible in Texas by Wednesday.

The storm will get strong, so winds will become an issue, too. As the storm lumbers northeastward toward the Great Lakes Thursday, snow, ice and wind will continue in the northern Plains, with a large area of rain across the Midwest.

All this will spread into the Northeast Friday. Northern New England faces some ice on Thursday night and early Friday before everything goes over to rain.

There won't be as much rain as in last Friday's storm, so any flooding that does happen will be less severe and much less widespread than it was over the weekend.

This upcoming cross-country storm is sure to create flight delays, so check with your airlines before you head to the airport if your departure or destination happens to be in the storm zone when you're flying.

Here in New England, some light snow will fall in central and southern parts of the region today, but it won't amount to much. Maybe an inch or two, with less than that the further north you go.

Christmas Day will feature a lot of sun with seasonably cold temperatures across New England. That gives us highs in the 20s north, near 30 central and in the 30s south. Wednesday and Thursday also look good before the ickiness arrives Thursday night across New England.

Possible Wet Late Week Storm Threatens White Christmas

This forecasted large storm on Friday and Saturday might
prevent much of New England from having a white Christmas.

It finally warmed up in northern New England, and many valley locations suddenly find themselves with very little snow on the ground. It's just nine days before Christmas.

For many of us here in Vermont, it's beginning to look a lot like another brown Christmas.

We've had quite a few of them in recent years. Although last Christmas I admit we had a nice covering of powdery holiday snow.

But this year could follow a recent trend of sometimes white Thanksgivings and even Easters with brown Christmases sandwiched in between.

There is some hope for a little fresh snow between tonight and Tuesday morning. Periods of snow should bring one to four inches of snow to most of us, with a half foot or more of additional accumulations in the higher elevations.

It'll be cold enough to maintain that snow until about Thursday night. Things could change, but right now it looks like a large, wet storm will move northward through the eastern third of the United States Friday and Saturday.

If things play out as expected, the storm would bring another round of heavy rain to the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic States. These areas are having a record wet year and December. They don't need additional flooding, but they might get it.

Photo taken on Christmas Day last year in West Rutland, Vermont. Last
year was surely a white Christmas.

Unlike the storm that is moving off coast today that will give us Vermonters only light precipitation, the Friday storm looks like it will bring a good slug of rain through the North Country Friday and Saturday. Not good for the ski areas, which had a great start to the season.

It also calls into question whether we'll have a white Christmas. I don't mean to say that's so important. It's certainly not the be all and end all. But people tend to like snowy Christmases.

I imagine colder air will filter in behind next weekend's storm on Sunday, December 23 and Monday, Christmas Eve, so we still have a shot of a white Christmas. The back sides of this type of storm tend to bring snow showers especially up in the mountains.

So we'll see.

Frigid Saturday Morning To Give Way To New England Snowstorm

It was below zero across almost all of northern New York and northern New England Saturday morning in the frigid calm before the storm.

Even normally "tropical" Burlington, Vermont got into the act, falling below zero for the first time this winter.

Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow. Forecasters
still say Vermont and surrounding states are due for
6 to 10 inches of snow this weekend. 

It really is a classic setup to what promises to be a classic textbook type snowfall across the region.

The cold high pressure system just to our north will force relatively warm, moist up from a storm approaching from the south and over the cold dome of air over us. That rising air will condense out the moisture as snow.

The storm will consolidate into a mid-sized nor'easter that will give us the first widespread snow of the season.

That whole scenario is typical of the way mid-sized snowstorms play out in New England.

Winter storm warnings are flying across most of New England through Sunday.

This won't be a huge storm. Like I said, a typical snowfall for the area. Most spots in Vermont and New Hampshire, along with most of northern New York will see generally six to 10 inches of powder. a few mountains and east facing slopes in the southern Green Mountains could pick up a foot.

A few places along the western slopes of the Green and White Mountains might pick up a bit less than six inches, since those mountains will block some of the moisture the storm will bring in from the Atlantic Ocean.

In some of the mountain passes in Vermont, especially in those western slope areas that get strong winds sometimes, it could get pretty nasty for awhile tonight and Sunday morning. Winds could gust to 40 or even 50 mph in a few isolated spots, like east of Rutland and Middlebury, and maybe toward Underhill and Cambridge.

Those winds would make visibilities drop to zero at times in blowing snow. For most of the rest of us, winds will probably stay at or below 25 mph for most of the storm.

Today, Saturday, is a good time to get your errands done out and about, since it won't start snowing until mid afternoon in southern Vermont and toward evening up north. Sunday, with the snow and blowing snow outdoors, you can sit inside, hot cocoa at the ready, to fill out Christmas cards and wrap gifts.

It'll be a classic Christmas day. Lots of "classics" going on with this storm, no?

As the snow tapers off later Sunday, temperatures will start to fall again. We get another blast of frigid air Monday before temperatures ease up a bit midweek.

The ski areas must be loving this, given it's hitting right before the Christmas holiday. It'll stay cold most of next week, with more snow showers around. There might be a brief thaw around Friday, but it probably won't last long all that long.

Chances are rising that Vermont will have a white Christmas this year.