A white Christmas after all?
You’re likely reading this on the last morning of fall 2022. Winter officially arrives today at 4:48 p.m., even though we already had a touch of wintry weather and a dusting of snow last weekend.
Temperatures have pretty much been up and down and all over the place since the start of November. What began as a rather mild fall has now given us a chilly, below average start to its final week with the warmest temperatures arriving today near a very seasonable 40 degrees. However, it’s all downhill from here for the Christmas weekend! Some will grumble about icy holiday travel and single-digit temperatures while others will take heart knowing that we just may wind up with a white Christmas this year after all.
To me, even a dusting, a snow shower or some flurries will suffice to call it a white Christmas. However, the official meteorological definition of a white Christmas is having one inch or more of snow on the ground at 7 a.m. on Christmas Day. It doesn’t have to fall on Christmas itself, but you have to have one inch of the white stuff on the ground. The chance of that here in Pittsburgh is only 17%. In fact, in the last 132 years, we’ve had only 14 white Christmases here, although the most snow we’ve ever had on Christmas was just two years ago with a total of 5.1 inches of snow. Before last year, we also had a white Christmas in 2017 and 2002, and two white Christmas years in 1995 and 1993. Before that, the last white Christmas was way back in 1970!
Now let’s talk about temperatures. This weekend will be a wild one with temps in the 40s to start Friday morning that will very rapidly plunge through the day to – I’m not kidding – single digits by Saturday morning. The high Saturday and Sunday will only reach the teens, which could rank it on the list of some of the coldest Christmases on record here.
What year was the coldest? 1983, when the high temperature only hit zero and the low plunged to minus 12 degrees! Pittsburgh has only recorded highs below 20 degrees on Christmas Day five other times, including 11 degrees in 1878 and 1980. Back in 2000, the high temperature on Christmas only reached 17 degrees.
Interestingly enough, that bitter Christmas Day back in 1983 was extremely cold but not recorded as a “white” Christmas. This year, Santa will be shivering in his sleigh and bringing us a little bit of both arctic air and snow.
Stay warm and safe, and here’s wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas and a wonderful, happy, healthy, and prosperous 2023!
Kristin Emery can be reached at kristinemery1@yahoo.com.