Will it be a White Christmas

In 3 words, it better be! The topic just came up in by Evan aka - wxduff in the forum who is studying in meteorology at Suny Oswego this year. WeatherT says it looks right now that it will be warming up by the end of the weekend and we will probably see rain come Sunday. 3 more words NO, NO, NO. Last Christmas was green and it %$^$&^. Not two Christmas's in a row I hope.

Tony (WeatherT) left some hope for us though mentioning that behind the storm that brings in the rain will be cold air that should HOPEFULLY start up the lake machines and bring some bright white fluffy stuff to the Golden Snowball cities on Christmas eve. Lets hope it all pans out. I've been trying to find some stats on the odds of having a white Christmas for all the cities but so far I have only found Binghamton and Syracuse's stats. I'll post the others when I find them and maybe the General knows where they are and will post them in the mean time.

So far December has been a fun and white month for all of the cities. Most likely it won't be a record setting month but a couple of cities may end up having a snowy December that ends up in their top 5 snowiest Decembers ever. More to come on that later but right now Syracuse and Rochester are approaching their top 5 numbers.

The odds of a white Christmas and snowfall in Syracuse on Christmas Day - Stats provided by NOAA and are the average from between 1949 - 2004

63% Chance of have an inch or more of snow on the ground.

37% chance of getting an inch or more of snowfall on Christmas Day.

68% chance of at least getting a trace of snow on Christmas Day.

The odds of a white Christmas for Binghamton according to NOAA


64% of Christmas days have an inch or more of snow on the ground.

18% chance of getting an inch or more of snowfall on Christmas Day.

53% chance of at least getting a trace of snow on Christmas Day.

The Odds of Buffalo having snow on the ground Christmas Day ( All I could find for now)

57% chance of at least an inch on the ground

23% chance of 5 inches on the ground

13% chance of 10 inches of snow on the ground Christmas day.

The Odds of Binghamton having snow on the ground Christmas Day ( All I could find for now)

60% of an inch on the ground

23% of 5 inches

3% of 10 inches of snow on the ground Christmas Day

The Odds of Albany having snow on the ground Christmas Day ( Hard to believe :)

63% Chance of an inch on the ground Christmas Day

30% chance of 5 inches on the ground

13% chance of ten inches of snow on the ground Christmas day.

For some reason I have a hard time accepting Albany's stats for Christmas snow. I'll look around and see if I can come up with some more stats for Albany, Buffalo and Rochester about it actually snowing on Christmas day.

With that all said look for the Golden Snowball snowman to be a little hit and miss the next several days. The reason being I don't have a thing done yet for Christmas and I am running out of time quickly. Have a super day all!

From The General

Pat you always beat me to the punch on these threads. I was getting all my stuff ready to put up a White Christmas thread, and guess what I see on the main page! Anyhow...

Looks to start warming up a bit heading into the weekend, maybe another inch or two to add to the snowpack tonight across the state with a weak clipper.

Storm heading up into the central great lakes will bring up some decent rainfall on Saturday into Sunday, hopefully it won't be enough to destroy the snowpack but could put the chances of a white christmas in jeporday.

The lake effect certainly will get cranking up on Sunday night through Tuesday. Alot depends on where the system exactly tracks and how slow it is to turn to the eastward track. Looks like it might fire up some quick limited lake effect on a SW flow to get some snow into Buffalo, then shift to the W during Christmas Eve and eventually turn into a NW flow going into and through Christmas Day. I really want to see how the NAM plays out this storm when it picks it up in the next 36-48 hours. It handled this past storm the best of any of them.

Chances:

Albany: 50% depends on how well the snowpack can hold with the rain.

Bingo: 60%again with the snowpack holding, but should see at least some flurries on Christmas Day.

Buffalo: 75% snowpack should hold and a chance of even some weak lake effect would make it a sure win.

Rochester: 85% snowpack should definitely hold, and Christmas Day lake effect will help out again.

Syracuse: 98% just cant give any city a 100% chance... just in case.

12/18/07 3:34 PM