Probably the closest to a textbook White Christmas in my lifetime, even if at the age of 2 I can't remember it. Apparently my mum and dad went to a disco in Gravesend on Christmas Eve, and it was snowing as they came out. The snow stopped before midnight, though, and it was a dry Christmas Day with a decent snow cover.
There's only been one occasion since with snow on the ground on Christmas Day, in 2010 - there was a small patch left over from a few days before. And there's also been one day with sleet, and one with about 10 tiny snowflakes which didn't amount to anything, but both of those were, in theory, White Christmases here.
I'm still holding out for a proper one, mind you, snow falling and snow on the ground. The odds of that are still very low, but at least it's a tiny bit higher than the usual zero chance!
From memory, I've had two *proper* white Xmas's:
1996 (I think) - a cold snap around the 25th was predominantly dry. On the 25th, we woke to a covering of snow that had fallen sometime in the early hours (I'd gone to bed around 1am and it hadn't snowed by then). Was only 1-2cm, but it had already frozen. and I remember deep blue clear skies. The roads were treacherous
2004 - a coldish and unstable NW'ly flow was well forecasted a fair bit in advance. This was the year I had three white Xmas bets that all won. Here, the snow (flitted between flake and soft hail) started early afternoon and the showers kept coming. Left around 5cm by dusk. The skies then cleared and temps plummeted. Again, the roads that night were treacherous; we used to do the in-laws in the day and my parents on the night and we left fairly early.
Plus we've had three with a good level of snow on the ground:
1981 - I remember that by Boxing Day, there'd been a fair bit of partial thaw/re-freeze so it was thick ice
2009 - Again, showers from the NW got more wintry until the weekend before Xmas when they went full snow/soft hail and continued through the week (would freeze under clear skies, then more showers, and so on - the best 'snow on snow' period I can recall here). We had around 12cm lying by Xmas Day. A gentle thaw set in Boxing Day and really hit on the 27th
2010 - We were one of the last regions to get the snow in the spell (although we didn't have to suffer the one or two milder blobs during an overall monumentally cold spell) but when we got it, we really got it. 16cm (was around 25cm just a few miles north of here) fell on Friday 17th, and we hardly lost any depth come Xmas Day. Again, though, the thaw set in on the 27th.
There's been a couple of 'technical white Xmas' incidences, too
Edited by user
08 December 2023 11:44:32
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Martin
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