Dreams of a classic white Christmas are fading for much of the Northeast, including south central Pennsylvania, as a late-December warming trend threatens to melt away any recent snow cover.
Meteorologists define a white Christmas as having at least one inch of snow on the ground on Christmas morning. Falling snow later in the day does not count, making lingering snowpack the key factor in determining whether the holiday lives up to its wintry reputation.
Current forecasts suggest the best chances for a white Christmas will be limited to the upper Midwest, parts of the mountain West, upstate New York and northern New England. In the Northeast, higher elevations in eastern New York and New England remain the most likely places to hold onto enough snow through Christmas morning.
Farther south, the outlook is less promising. While parts of the mid-Atlantic and the Interstate 95 corridor saw their first snow of the season earlier this month, that snow is expected to diminish as temperatures rise. For communities in south central Pennsylvania, including areas around Harrisburg, Gettysburg and York, the odds of maintaining an inch of snow on the ground through Christmas morning appear low.
This comes despite what has been an active early winter across much of the Midwest and East. Several cities experienced one of their coldest first halves of December on record, and snowfall totals in parts of the Midwest rivaled or exceeded seasonal averages. Even Scranton, Pennsylvania, logged unusually cold conditions earlier this month.
Some light snow in parts of the Northeast early this week could briefly refresh snow cover, but forecasters say it is unlikely to be enough to offset the broader warming pattern settling in ahead of Christmas. Another weather system later in the week may bring rain rather than snow to much of the region, or arrive after Christmas morning.
The warming trend is expected to extend across most of the Lower 48 beginning on Christmas Day and continuing toward New Year’s Eve, with temperatures near or above average. While occasional cold fronts will pass through, they are forecast to be weaker and shorter-lived than earlier in the month, further reducing the likelihood of sustained snow cover.
Nationally, this could mean less holiday snow than last year, when only about 26 percent of the country had snow on the ground on Christmas morning, according to NOAA.
Source: The Weather Channel