White Christmas (weather)

[2][3] The song, "White Christmas", written by Irving Berlin and sung by Bing Crosby (with the Ken Darby singers and John Scott Trotter and his orchestra) and featured in the 1942 Paramount Pictures film Holiday Inn, is the best-selling single of all time and speaks nostalgically of a traditional white Christmas and has since become a seasonal standard.

[11] In Ireland, the prospect of early winter snow is always remote due to the country's mild and wet climate (snowfall is most common in January and February).

[13] Environment Canada started to analyze data from 1955 to 2017 for a total of 63 years, It shows the chance of a White Christmas for several Canadian cities.

[14][15][16] In 2008, Canada experienced the first nationwide white Christmas in 37 years, as a series of pre-Christmas storms hit the nation, including the normally rainy BC Pacific coast.

In the contiguous United States, the highest probabilities are in the Upper Midwest and parts of northern New England, along with higher elevations of the Rockies.

According to research by the CDIAC, the United States during the second half of the 20th century experienced declining frequencies of white Christmases, especially in the northeastern region.

In the United Kingdom, white Christmases were more common from the 1550s to the 1850s, during the Little Ice Age; the last frost fair on the River Thames, however, was in the winter of 1813–14.

[23] Before 2006 for betting purposes, a Met Office employee was required to record if any snow fell on the London Weather Centre over the 24 hours of Christmas Day; after 2006 computers were used.

Travel over much of Britain was badly affected by ice and snow on roads, and was made more slippery by partial daytime thaw followed by overnight refreezing.

[29] In Europe, snow at Christmas is common in Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Baltic states, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine, Belarus, and northeastern Poland.

In general, due to the influence of the warm Gulf Stream on European climate, chances of a white Christmas are lower farther west.

Some places like Ushuaia, Argentina and Stanley, Falkland Islands have received measurable snowfall on Christmas Day on numerous occasions.

[citation needed] In 2006, a snowstorm hit the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales and Victoria, Australia, arriving on Christmas morning and bringing nearly 12 in (30 cm) of snow in higher areas.

The same situation can be seen in the Andes at elevations above 4,000 m (13,000 ft), with some locations on the Bolivian altiplano, such as El Alto, having the theoretical possibility of a white Christmas.