Another Brown Christmas?

For most of the country, a White Christmas is either impossible or too rare to actually gets your hope up for. But in the Spokane area, the odds are more like 50-50, with even better odds north of the metro area. 

But with the last two Brown Christmases, statistics were in our favor.  To add to that, the climate models were predicting that the mild temperatures would be replaced with a cooler weather pattern for the holidays. And while the weather has cooled down, it’s not exactly great snow pattern for the Inland Northwest. 

Here’s the current forecast for Christmas. The central and eastern US will have a rather mild holiday, while the West Coast will be cooler.  Unfortunately for us, the majority of the weather in this pattern will be aimed at California.  Lots of rain and Sierra snow expected there.


Temperature forecasts for the next week are cold enough for snow, at times. But our high temperatures will be near 40, so rain is also a possibility at those times of the day.  What’s more, our dew point is forecast to rise above freezing at times, which also would favor rain over snow.


All of this adds up to chances of rain or snow for the next few days.


There are some computer forecasts that hold out some hope.  The latest European and US model forecasts actually show snow falling on Christmas Day and evening.




But the odds of a white Christmas are low at this point.  There is a storm that could potentially impact our area on Christmas Eve that could bring snow to some folks.  But most of us will probably get rain.  And a few of the computer forecasts do show some strong winds with this system, but the majority of the forecasts do not show any wind.  I’ll keep an eye on this and provide you with an update on whether you’ll have power to cook Christmas dinner.





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