Will there be a white Christmas in Columbus and central Ohio?

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — If there is one time of the year almost everyone is fine with a little snow, it is around Christmastime.

However, the odds of a white Christmas are unfavorable this year because the jet stream pattern is likely to dive across the West, driving cold air into the Rockies, and then turn north to form a ridge of mild air over the Midwest the weekend before Christmas Day.

The prevailing pattern suggests unseasonably mild and relatively dry conditions in the days leading up to Christmas in Ohio, based on the 8- to 14-day temperature and precipitation outlooks issued by NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.

For those of us who dream of a white Christmas every year, there is often disappointment. Statistically, three out of every four Christmas holidays are snow-free in central Ohio.

A white Christmas is defined as an inch or more of snow on the ground on Christmas morning.

The historical chances of a white Christmas in Columbus are only 23%. That value drops to about 12% in the Cincinnati area. Not surprisingly, northeastern Ohio sees a white Christmas approximately one out of every two years, enhanced by lake-effect snow showers.

Last year was a memorable snowy Christmas in Ohio, after the passage of an arctic cold front that sent the Columbus temperature plummeting to -7 degrees at daybreak on Dec. 23, 2022, with a brutal wind chill down to -34.

The city was blanketed with 4.9 inches of snow at dawn that day that blew everywhere, as wind gusts peaked at 46 mph. The cold was unrelenting through the holiday: the high was 15 degrees, and the morning low was a frigid 7 degrees on Christmas Day.

We have certainly experienced some remarkable extremes in recent years. Christmas 2021 was exceptionally mild, with a high of 62 degrees and a soaking 0.82 inch of rain, the wettest on record for the holiday.

A traditional snowy Christmas in 2020 occurred after a sharp drop in temperature on Christmas Eve, from 53 to 17 degrees, accompanied by 3.6 inches of snow that tapered off early on Christmas morning. Temperatures ranged from 14 to 18 degrees in Columbus, with a 3-inch snow cover.