Why it could be a ‘white Christmas’ even if you see no snow this year
The Met Office answers questions about how often there is a white Christmas in Britain and whether there will be one in 2025.
A complete covering of snow in the UK is unlikely this week, according to latest forecasts, but the Met Office’s generous definition of a ‘white Christmas’ means it may still be possible.
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After Storm Amy, Bram, Benjamin, and Claudia, Brits could be forgiven for wanting a rest from any more named weather events and the associated travel chaos.
However, anyone hoping for the chance to build a snow man on Christmas Day might be disappointed, with the 2025 forecast looking unfavourable for a blizzard.
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The Met Office has a generous definition of a white Christmas
“A single snowflake has to be observed falling on the 24 hours of December 25,” for a white Christmas to be declared, states the Met Office, and it can be anywhere in the UK.
This definition has meant that 80 per cent of Christmas Days since 1960 have been considered to be a ‘white Christmas,’ despite the scene outside most windows hardly resembling a snow scene worthy of a Dickens book or Netflix special.
Therefore, chances are, on any given year - there is a good chance it will be a ‘white Christmas’, even if it does not feel like one.
When was the last white Christmas?
The Met Office declared a ‘white’ Christmas in 2023 when 11% of stations recorded snow falling, although none reported any snow lying on the ground.
This slightly ambiguous record has us looking back further through the history books to 2010 when there was snow settling on the ground at 83% of Met Office weather stations.
A reason as to why there are few, and to use an unofficial term, “proper” white Christmases is that December is actually the very first period of a season of historic snowfall in the UK.
Over the years, it has been recorded that far more snow could fall in January, February, or even March.
A Met Office forecaster said: “White Christmases were more frequent in the 18th and 19th centuries, even more so before the change of calendar in 1752 which effectively brought Christmas Day back by 12 days.
“Climate change has also brought higher average temperatures over land and sea and this generally reduced the chances of a white Christmas.”