Will we have a white Christmas?

49 days until Christmas and for those who like to plan ahead it would be nice to know Will we have a white Christmas or not? How reliable is the info out there, the data? Cody Matz joins us with a closer look. All of this coming because... What else happens this time of the year? The Farmer's Almanac came out with its prediction, and we know Cody loves this. I love, you know, like the most accurate thing in the world is the Farmer's Almanac. Someone's going to clip that, and that will haunt you forever. Probably, but it's fine. Because you don't actually believe that. No, no, I do not. Because it says we're not going to have a white Christmas, right? Which is certainly possible, but that's like possible every year. Right, yeah. It's a 50-50 chance. I mean, kind of. So, yeah, this is essentially what the Old Farmers' Almanac, see, I can't even say it. This is their forecast for the U.S. So they count a white Christmas as having at least one inch of snow on the ground on Christmas Day. That is the generic term that's from the National Weather Service. It doesn't necessarily mean it has to snow on that day. But where are they getting the data? The Old Farmers' Almanac says it makes long-range weather predictions based on, quote, solar science, climatology, and meteorology. Okay. It also says it looks at historical weather patterns and climate data to make long-range forecasts. Sure. A 1981 study found that the Almanac was about 50% right with its predictions, a.k.a. a coin toss, a.k.a. you can just pick one and still be right. So there you go. Okay, here's a look at some real data. How about some real stuff? We'll take it. So this is a chance, generically, of a white Christmas in each individual year. So on average, the Upper Midwest, there you go, you go from essentially almost a guarantee of a white Christmas, almost, in far northern Minnesota, to about a 75% chance. So three out of every four years here in the Twin Cities. You get to Kansas City, it's about one in four. Give or take. So you zoom in a little bit. There you can kind of get a closer look at the state. Well, we're right on that line. It does vary. Yeah. The metro, very much 75%. Parts of southern Minnesota are like 55% or 60%. So it just kind of depends. But again, this is for any given year. This is not necessarily for 2023. So kind of give it nice round numbers to kind of put it into a sum. Since 1899, the Twin Cities have had 37 brown Christmases. So that comes out to roughly a quarter of the time. The last time was officially 2023. The most snow we've ever had on the ground was in 1983. That was one of the largest snowstorms we've had on record. 20 inches of snow cover that year. You can see kind of the other stats. So any given year, we get a 75% chance of a white Christmas. This year, because it's a super El Nino and there's a lot of warmth around, quite likely it's more likely to be a brown Christmas. Saying that, though, in terms of a current forecast and what's happening in the atmosphere, I might hedge my bets. Ooh, look at you, Cody. So there's something, this is going to be super nerdy, wait for it. All right. Something called a sudden stratospheric warming event that's occurring during an El Nino. The last one we had this early in the year was back in 2009. The winter of 2009, so December, January, and February, the winter months, was very cold and very snowy. Oh, I don't know if I want them very cold. So we'll see. I'd like to pick and choose. Do we get to do that? I don't think we get to do that. Mother Nature decides. If we're throwing out hypotheticals, why not? I'm not saying you're hypothetical. The overall hypotheticals? Yes. Fine. The overall hypotheticals, 97 degrees on Christmas. There you go. Okay. 97 degrees. I also feel like everyone's description of a white Christmas is different, too, because to your point, the threshold is the dictionary definition at that point either because it's already was kind of brown dictionary definition is one inch of snow cover 7 a.m. Christmas morning. Wow. It's like even at the time. Yes, because you have to have it like a time. You have to have a stamp on it. Otherwise, you have no data to base it off of you. So there you go. Well, stay tuned, folks. What did you say? 49 days. Okay, there you go. So we'll know in 48 days. Nice. Thank you, Cody. Yeah