Will it snow this Christmas? Latest Met Office verdict | EUROtoday

It’s that point of 12 months once more when the climate is getting colder, the knitted jumpers are popping out, and the nation is dreaming a couple of white Christmas.

But these hoping for snowflakes to cascade from the sky might have to attend a bit longer, because the Met Office’s future projections present {that a} whiteout on Christmas Day shouldn’t be very doubtless.

Tom Crabtree, deputy chief forecaster on the Met Office, mentioned: “High pressure is expected to build into next week, bringing drier and less mild conditions for the Christmas period.

“Although temperatures will drop, they are not plummeting. Overnight frosts are likely, and some mist and fog is possible in places, but significant cold weather looks less probable.

“Falling temperatures do bring the potential for some wintry showers in the east, but it is too early to discern details for any particular day over the Christmas period.”

The threshold for a “white Christmas”, the Met Office mentioned, requires only a single snowflake to be noticed falling on Christmas Day, wherever within the UK.

Last 12 months, the Met Office predicted a “grey Christmas”, with patches of rain and cloud coupled with gentle temperatures.

The final time there was technically a white Christmas within the UK was in 2023, when 11 per cent of climate stations recorded snow falling, however none reported any settled snow on the bottom.

The final time there was widespread settled snow at Christmas was again in 2010. That was the UK’s whitest Christmas on report, with 83 per cent of stations recording snow on the bottom.

More than half of all Christmas Days since 1960 have met the brink, with round half of these years seeing not less than 5 per cent of climate stations reporting snow falling on the large day.

However, the possibilities of the snow really settling are slim: that has solely occurred 4 occasions, in 1981, 1995, 2009 and 2010.

For most elements of the United Kingdom, Christmas is simply at first of the interval when it is prone to snow and we usually tend to see snow in January and February than in December, in accordance with the Met Office.

Snow on common settles on the bottom (snow mendacity) 3 days in December, in comparison with 3.3 days in January, 3.4 days in February and 1.9 days in March (1991 – 2020 long-term averaging interval).

Met Office knowledge reveals the information of which areas have skilled a ‘White Christmas’ since 1960 to 2024. They mostly occur in The Highlands which had the very best occurrences of 175 snowy Christmases, adopted intently by Aberdeenshire with 92 instances.

White Christmases had been extra frequent within the 18th and nineteenth centuries, much more so earlier than the change of calendar in 1752 which successfully introduced Christmas Day again by 12 days.

Climate change has additionally introduced greater common temperatures over land and sea and this usually decreased the possibilities of a white Christmas.