Who doesn't love snow at Christmas time?!
We certainly do here at KOAA, but according to this map from the NOAA Climate Center, our chances outside of the mountains aren't very great.
Explore the map below by using the (+/- ) buttons on the left and you mouse to zoom into any area you would like.
Click on a dot near your city to see the probability of at least 1 inch of snow on the ground at that location using data from 1981 through 2010.
Not surprisingly, most of the mountains in Colorado are almost guaranteed at seeing at least 1 inch of snow on the ground at Christmas time.
For areas like Colorado Springs and Pueblo, however, chances are MUCH lower.
In this data set, Colorado Springs only has a 21% chance of 1 inch of snow or more on the ground while Pueblo has a 19% chance.
Now this doesn't mean we can't get snow on Christmas or have snow on the ground, it just means when looking at climate data of the past 30 years we usually have dry, brown grass on Christmas day instead of fresh, beautiful snow.
More Christmas Facts:
The National Weather Service branch in Pueblo also put together a few interesting Christmas Day statistics for Colorado Springs and Pueblo!
They did this using a climate data set from 1890 through 2019, so some numbers might look different from the map above.
According to the NWS branch in Pueblo, a white Christmas is defined as ">0.5 inches of snow falling on Christmas day with a least 1 inch on the ground.
The last white Christmas according to this rule in Colorado Springs was in 1987 when there was an inch of snow on the ground in the morning, and an inch of snow fell during the day.
For Pueblo, the last white Christmas was in 2000. Light snow started falling Christmas Eve night but picked up Christmas afternoon and 1.8" was reported before midnight.
Be sure to track the forecast over the next few weeks to see this year's chance for a white Christmas with the KOAA First Alert 5 Weather Team!
