The 16th Annual Boards.ie White Christmas thread!

Rebelbrowser

Its that time of year yet again, when with Halloween over us, thoughts turn now to the next big event on the horizon - yup Christmas is coming and thus its time to re-open our White Christmas thread for 2025! For much of the year I doubted we would get to do this again so its great we able to do so.

Last year was yet another bust (this is largely pasted from last year, and the year before, but it’s the same every year sadly…). And let's face it, this year will be too. We already know it will be 14c with intermittent rain on Christmas day. It always is these days. But this is a thread for hopeless, nay baseless, optimism so let's delude ourselves for a few weeks that this year will be different....

This particular thread is going since 2010, the first is still available if you search, but in fact I found White Christmas threads dating back to 2004 (when there was a White Christmas for many...) at https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/show....php?p=2209623 . Some familiar names posted in that thread too I note!

As usual this thread is solely concerned with the weather over the Christmas period, primarily 24 & 25 December and, in particular, is concerned with whether it might snow on Christmas day itself.

The last white Christmas (as in lying snow) for most of us was 2010 of course. However I don't think there was any Christmas day snowfall that year. The last actual technically correct white Christmas (1cm of falling snow at one of our airports I think?) for most of us was 2004. That's 21 years ago, so statistically we are way overdue a white one this year (Met Eireann say that historically Dublin airport gets a technically correct white Christmas every 5.9 years).

The brilliant white Christmas page on The Weather Outlook website actually has weather charts for every Christmas day since 1948. Well worth looking at.

It would be great if we could actually get to a situation where, say, 5 days out from Christmas day it looked like we had proper cold upper temperatures forecast to be over us for Xmas day and thus a decent chance of snow. We’ve never had that on this thread, save for 2010 – and in fact in 2010 most of us had snow on the ground 5 days out and could see it wasn’t going to melt by the big day, so there was no drama then either.

Right, enough intro, let's talk weather.

The CFS (a long range weather model of doubtful accuracy) is probably the best source at this stage for making any sort of guess as to what weather we might have on the big day. For various reasons I will follow up what it currently shows in a different post.

I should say that the TheWeatherOutlook (TWO) Christmas forecast, updated by a computer every day, has the current forecast as at today..

“…The Computer says

• Southern England

Too mild for snow

• Wales

Too mild for snow

• Central England

Too mild for snow

• Northern England

Too mild for snow

• Scotland

Cold and dry

• Northern Ireland

Too mild for snow

• Republic of Ireland

Too mild for snow

Anyway, that's enough for the OP. Anyone should feel free to post on, and update, this thread. I will do it every week or so for now (unless there are any particularly titillating charts in the mean time) but it would be great if others did it too.

Ciao for now.

Oh, and happy Christmas 🎅 🎄🤶

Kaybaykwah

Don’t feel bad if it doesn’t happen. I live in the snowiest big city in the world: Montreal, and there have been years where despite the cold, no snowfall had occurred, or rain had melted what snow was in the ground before.

I still wish Ireland the whitest Christmas ever!

Dress warmly, and may the chiselers be happy!!!

igCorcaigh

Let's do it. There's always that outlier, I will live in hope!

Thank you OP.

Bogey Lowenstein

There seems to be only two types of weather on Christmas day anymore: Grey and overcast, warmish and humid, and either dry or raining. 🥺

Gonzo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123957724#Comment_123957724

Christmas is always 13C! (except maybe Christmas 2010!)

Bogey Lowenstein

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123957892#Comment_123957892

Yes, we might see some frosts and freezes in November but for some reason by Christmas it always turns quite muggy and mild.

Never mind a white Christmas, I can't even remember the last time we had a frosty Christmas morning. 🤔

Billcarson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123958005#Comment_123958005

2020 i think

Bogey Lowenstein

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123958099#Comment_123958099

Oh I don't remember that. I have memories of identical Christmas mornings for years now. 🤔

Rebelbrowser

A cool enough Xmas day on these CFS charts…

sorry for quality of attachments..,,

almostthere12

EQBO, -NAO, -AO, -IOD, MJO phase 7, potential SSW………I have run out of acronyms but what could go wrong!

Oh yeah Christmas Day is going to be wall to wall Atlantic muck and 14C!

ClimateObserver

Today's chart:

Temperatures 5c to 9c generally, milder south coast. Showers or longer spells of rain.

almostthere12

CFS gives us a very cold and possibly white Christmas.

I know the higher probability is it will be mild but with all the teleconnections looking good you never know, this could be the year!!

bazlers

Very good, it would be nice. Will we ever see a 2010 Christmas again. Snow never actually fell on the day but wow it was something special.

Rebelbrowser

yeah, just looking at the latest CFS run. Not so good for Xmas day but lots of cold around in December albeit mostly 500 miles too far west for us.

Rebelbrowser

Looking at the CFS, bit of a northerly setting up for the Christmas period.

Separately the wonderful TheWeatherOutlook Christmas forecast has this for the island next door..

“…The fifteenth update makes no change to the chance of a white Christmas in both the north and the south. At the moment the 30 day analogues show 2021, 1980 and 1999 as the top three matches.

In first position, 2021 was not without interest, with cold air over northern and eastern areas. In 1980 a chilly northwesterly flow was pushing southwards, so a number of places probably did record a technical white Christmas. In third place it's now 1999, which led to the famous white Christmas in London. Many people didn’t realise it had happened until they read about it later, but a vigorous westerly flow brought a pool of colder air across the UK, resulting in a few flakes of snow being mixed into showers that fell on the London Weather Centre. 

The ECMWF sub-seasonal ensemble shows a mixed picture. There is a signal for pressure to be higher than average to the north and lower than average across the UK and continental Europe, a reasonably hopeful pattern were it to be correct. The GEFS model also now reaches the big day, but it currently suggests temperatures are more likely to be above average than below. 

Therefore, no changes have been made in this update because the analogues continue to show interest, as does the ECMWF sub-seasonal model. In addition, several background signals favour early cold snaps this year. On the flipside, the GEFS isn’t promising…”

Rebelbrowser

looking at CFS long term, and gfs and ecm shorter term, there is precious little to suggest snow is imminent. Usually we get false white Christmas charts around now so maybe, in a perverse way, this is good?

Gonzo

probably the most grim set of charts I've ever seen heading into first half of December, it's basically all mild. Not even one outlier to get excited about.

nacho libre

Sigh. Are we ever going to see a white Christmas again?

I remember walking home from the pub as snow fell that night in 1995. I was jumping up in the air with excitement. Sryan and MT ye both are very bright people. Is there any chance between the two of you of inventing a time machine so we can all go back to Christmas 1995. The way it's going now i doubt we'll ever see a white Christmas again.

**This could be an attempt at reverse psychology**

Rebelbrowser

apologies I haven’t been updating this. My laptop is a work laptop and for some reason boards.ie offends our company firewall. Much harder to update by phone…

anyway, as others have said, the picture for Xmas is a bit grim right now. Still time to change though. It will be next week before the GFS etc start modelling the xmas period.

Rebelbrowser

the charts have managed to disprove further which is some achievement. But we only see out to 21 December on all models bar the CFS so….

Rebelbrowser

too late for Christmas but the CFS at least is showing a cold start to 2026 with cold air flooding south on NYE and staying in place for a good few days…

In terms of Xmas itself, the most tentative signs on a few models today that we might possibly see the Atlantic blocked by Xmas eve to at least give us some dry weather - but Im reaching here….

Rebelbrowser

The 6z gfs continues to hint at regime change just in time for Christmas…. Are we going to get a Christmas miracle?🎄🙏

Rebelbrowser

Theme of high pressure coming to visit from 23 December is on both the GFS and the AI version of ECM this evening. No use for snow but might allow a night frost and might allow some proper cold to build over the holiday period. And it will be better than the current shite…

Bogey Lowenstein

Tell me, has Ireland ever gone to bed on a dry Christmas Eve and woken up to a blanket of snow on Christmas Morning? Like in the films. If so when did it happen last?

Billcarson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124053817#Comment_124053817

Would that not be just a mild HP with plenty of dull cloudy weather? Any HP coming from that direction at this time of yr usually results in gloomy weather.

Gonzo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124054191#Comment_124054191

Anytcylonic Gloom most likely, normally something I don't like, but given how wet the ground is a week or two of this would do the world of good, obviously clear skies, sunny by day, frost and fog would be the much more prefarable option but right now we need a serious dry spell no matter what form it takes.

Billcarson

Id say we have about a week left for the models to change to colder if we want festive weather. If they are showing a continuation of mild weather early next week that's Christmas done in regarding cold for yet another year imo. Its probably done in already but I want to give it another week.

Gonzo

GFS 6z now shows Christmas day, long fetch south-westerlies, temperatures into double figures nationwide.

This mild and extremely unsettled pattern is likely to last close to Christmas Day with perhaps the final week of December a bit dryer with temperatures close to average. We'll be doing well to see a frost before new years eve.

12z not much better, the yellow finger of mild right over Ireland.

Your eagerness to write off whole months never ceases to amaze me Gonzo 😅

Gonzo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124057698#Comment_124057698

It's easy when I've witnessed so many nothing winters since 1992 except for maybe a few such as 2000, 2008,2009, 2010 and 2018. Models at the moment show it mild right up to and including Christmas day and during the holidays we'll be almost one third of the way through winter. I haven't written off this winter except for maybe this month. January seems the most likely time for cold this winter.

Rebelbrowser

Im not writing off a White Christmas just yet. Always long odds, and longer still right now, but….

There is no model consensus yet. Yesterday the suggestion seemed to be HP coming over us from the SW. This morning ECM still has that (so dry at least) but its a different shape if HP to yesterday. The 6z GFS though has the Atlantic back in but with systems pushed on a more northerly track by the HP - so far more colder air is mixing in. Nothing mild about the GFS for Xmas day right now.

Clearly things are still in flux…

GFS

and ECM….