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Christmas Snow? Not Likely!

Contributed by: ThorntonWeather.com - on 12/13/2007

As Christmas gets closer, everyone always wonders if we are going to get the proverbial "white Christmas." Unfortunately, if you look at Denver and Thornton weather history, the chances aren't all that good but it also depends on what you define as a white Christmas.

If a white Christmas means having more than an inch of snow on the ground on Christmas Day, then the chances are about 36%. Since 1900, a mere 39 out of 106 Christmas Days have had snow on the ground.

But, if you think a white Christmas means actually having measurable snowfall on the holiday itself (at least 0.1 inch), then the odds drop down to only 12%! Only 13 Christmas Days since 1900 have had the white stuff actually fall on that day.

Recent history though does offer better chances. Since 1973, 18 years had 1 inch or more of snow on the ground for Santa Claus' deliveries which is about 51 percent of the time. Seven Christmas Days had measurable snowfall which is about 18 percent of the time.

December just isn't that snowy of a month, ranking as only the fourth snowiest month(behind March, November and April). There have however been some pretty significant snow events around Christmas.

The Christmas Eve blizzard of 1982 gave us the most snow ever on the ground for a Christmas Day with 24 inches! Christmas Day itself though saw a mere 0.2 inches of new snowfall but as I recall, we weren't too disappointed about that as we spent the holiday just trying to dig out from Christmas Eve's snowfall!

Some other significant Christmas Day snow depths were: 19 inches in 1913; 11 inches in 1918; and 12 inches in 1973 and 15 inches in 2006. The heaviest snowfall on Christmas Day itself was only 1.7 inches which occurred way back in 1912.

As alluded to above, just last year Christmas Day 2006 was definitely a white Christmas. In the days leading up to the holiday, we saw a major snowstorm on December 21st that dumped over 22 inches of snow in Thornton. This was coupled with cold days and extremely cold nights. On Christmas Day itself, just over 1/2 of an inch of snow fell. While the kids loved it, adults were less enthused and this began weeks of poor conditions for the Denver area. Eight more inches fell on the 29th and smaller accumulations fell in January all while maintaining frigid temperatures. Snow covered most yards and side streets for weeks! December 2006 became the third snowiest December on record and surprisingly, this was with only four days of measurable snowfall.

For a more in depth look at Christmas weather history, please see here: http://www.thorntonweather.com/noaa/christmas.php

As the holiday approaches, please visit ThorntonWeather.com for all the latest forecasts and weather conditions!

ThorntonWeather.com is your local source for Thornton weather and weather related news. Provided as a service to the community, ThorntonWeather.com offers real-time weather information, forecasts, radar, statistics and more!


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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

ThorntonWeather.com -

Thornton , CO

ThorntonWeather.com - has posted 15 stories and 0 comments since joining on 10/30/2007. ThorntonWeather.com - 's average story rating is 5.
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