“May your days be merry and bright, and may all your Christmases be white.” — “White Christmas,” written by Irving Berlin, sung by Bing Crosby.
All of our Christmases being white might be a bit much except for the most ardent snow fans — but many flake-o-philes do dream of most of our Christmases being white.
None of our Christmases being white has a sizable contingent of flake-o-phobe electorate, if weather were left up to voting.
But the largest plurality of Southwest and Southside Virginia residents, based on my assessment of two decades of interaction with you in writing about weather for print and online publications and on social media, would probably go for some of our Christmases being white.
· Holiday weather: All is calm and most days will be bright — but not white — this week. Temperatures will run near normal to slightly above normal, 40s and 50s highs mostly, 20s and 30s lows, somewhat warmer than previous days. The weekend will bring a chance of rain showers. It may get warmer next week. There are strong signals of the likelihood for a deepening cold pattern over much of the eastern U.S. early in 2025. We’ll revisit that in the days ahead.
One or two in 10 Christmases being white, roughly the average across our region, is probably a bit too few for the “some” crowd, too much for the “none” group, and criminally deficient for the “most” and “all” gangs.
Safer to go with Burl Ives’ offered “cup of cheer” when “I don’t know if there will be snow” in “Holly Jolly Christmas,” or even Mariah Carey’s promise that “I won’t even ask for snow” in “All I Want for Christmas is You” than be wishing for all of our Christmases to be white.
When was Christmas last white?
Given Cardinal News country’s nearly mile-high difference in topography and over 300 miles of west-to-east breadth (Cumberland Gap to Cumberland County) and 100ish-mile north-to-south stretch from the Virginia border to near Interstate 64, it is hard to generalize about the frequency or historical occurrences of snowfall at Christmas.
The average is closer to three in 10 Christmases being white for our highest elevation areas near the West Virginia state line and west of Interstate 77. But for some parts of Southside Virginia, the number drops to 5 percent or less of Christmases being white, though records are a little sparse to say for sure.
Even this might manage to be a white Christmas for a few high ridgeline areas near the West Virginia state line or in Southwest Virginia, if an inch of accumulation from Friday and Saturday snow showers manages to linger through Christmas morning, meeting the official National Weather Service definition of a “white Christmas.” (Yes, the words of a Bing Crosby song have been codified. For the purposes of this piece, I am varying a little off the requirement that the snow has to be an inch by 7 a.m. on Christmas.)
The map below shows when the last white Christmas occurred in different parts of our region, based on as much National Weather Service data as I could find. For most of our region, that is either 2010 (most areas east of the Blue Ridge) or 2020 (most areas along and west of the Blue Ridge), but a few scattered spots in Southwest Virginia and parts of the New River Valley may have collected just enough snow in streaky bands to qualify during our deep-Arctic-cold outbreak in 2022, a winter that mostly disappeared a day after Christmas.
My lines (many thanks to my longtime former Roanoke Times colleague, graphic artist Rob Lunsford, for again making something presentable out of my hen-scratching) may be a little fuzzy and a bit off in a few spots, due mostly to lack of data, so apologies in advance if your house did or didn’t get the Christmas snow in 2020 and is on the wrong side of the line.
I looked at snowfall data for lots of locations in Southwest and Southside Virginia to get an idea of white Christmases across the region over the decades, but Roanoke and Lynchburg data will tend to be the default for two reasons: (1) having the most complete snowfall and snow depth data sets in the region since World War II, which is when Bing Crosby’s song, purposefully geared for homesick soldiers in the war, made “white Christmases” a cultural phenomenon and (2) the two sites generally being an average between snowier Southwest and less snowy Southside areas.
Roanoke bats a somewhat surprisingly high .188 (18.8%, 15 of 80) on white Christmases since WWII, including the 1945 winter itself, the first back home for the troops, which was white. Christmas has been white 15% of the time at Lynchburg, or 12 of 80 times. It can be inferred that white Christmas frequency is 20-30% for most locations north and west of Roanoke and under 15% for most places south and east of Lynchburg.
Christmas has been sporadically white
Surprising fact: From Roanoke and the Blue Ridge westward, the 2020s have had more white Christmases than the 1970s did.
Not surprising fact: The decade of the 1960s had more Christmases that were white across most of our region than the entire first quarter-century of the 21st century plus the 1990s.
The 1960s and 1970s were both notoriously cold and snowy decades in our region, colder and snowier on the whole than those before and after. But the coldest periods and snow of the 1970s mostly occurred later in the season, not at Christmas.
White Christmases with at least an inch of snow on the ground that covered at least half of our region appear to have occurred in 1945, 1948, 1960, 1961,1962, 1963, 1966, 1969, 1981, 1985, 1989, 1993, 2009, 2010 and 2020. A few other years emerge in more scattered or localized patterns, such as 1999 for Lynchburg and some parts of Southside.
Of this list, 1962, 1969, 1981, 2010 and 2020 (barely) involved accumulating snow actually falling on Christmas itself.
That most locations in our region went from 1969 to 1981 without a single white Christmas (1976 might have counted for some, though it didn’t meet the 1-inch threshold for most) is a stunning statistic considering the late 1970s brought some of our coldest winters on record and most winters during the decade had above-normal snowfall. Even amid the most snow-sparse five-year period on record, the Roanoke Valley and areas along and west of the Blue Ridge eked out a white Christmas in 2020.
The 1950s’ dearth of white Christmases is less surprising; it was generally a low-snow decade.
The 1960s, however, were the golden age of big snow in our region, including at Christmas.
1969: The big snowy Christmas
Christmas 1969 is in a league of its own, as that is the only Christmas on record in which much of our region topped a foot of snow on Christmas Day.
Dec. 25, 1969, wouldn’t be considered a classic white Christmas by some definitions, as the day arose with a bare ground. But snow began during the morning hours, piled up through the afternoon and evening, and continued until the early morning hours of Dec. 26.
Some snow totals, in inches, across our region on Dec 25-26, 1969: Roanoke, 16.4; Burke’s Garden, 16.0; Pulaski, 16.0; Blacksburg, 14.0; Stuart, 13.6; Lexington, 13.0; New Castle, 13.0; Rocky Mount, 13.0; Lynchburg, 12.7; Appomattox, 12.7; Philpott Dam, 12.0; Wytheville, 12.0; Saltville, 11.0; Meadows of Dan, 10.8; Martinsville, 10.6; Pearisburg, 9.7; Brookneal, 9.0; Covington, 9.0; Pennington Gap, 9.0; Chatham, 8.0; Wise, 7.7; Danville, 4.0.
I know we just said Roanoke tended to be an average between snowy Southwest and less snowy Southside, but this data shows evidence that the Star City wins the mistletoe laurel for having the most deeply white Christmas in Southwest and Southside Virginia since the 1940s. The 16.4 inches in 1969 reigned as Roanoke’s biggest December snow on record (since 1912) until 17.8 fell a week before Christmas in 2009. And the 14.6 inches before midnight on Dec. 25 itself was the most in a single December calendar day until topped by 15 inches just six years ago on Dec. 9, 2018, our region’s last “big one.”
This was a textbook “Miller A” nor’easter-type snowstorm with a low forming along the Gulf Coast and tracking up the Eastern Seaboard. When the cold air is sufficiently blocked by high pressure in northern latitudes, this is the atmospheric setup with greatest efficiency to spread Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic moisture into Arctic air parked inland for the longest and most intense periods we ever see. It can snow with several different setups, but it rarely snows more than 10 inches in a wide section of our region without a Miller A-type coastal low.
WDBJ (Channel 7) has vintage video posted from the 1969 white Christmas, linked here. The (Lynchburg) News & Advance has a photo gallery, posted here (paywall).
White Christmas for many just four years ago
The most recent white Christmas was nothing close to 1969, but an unexpected treat for many who enjoy that sort of thing without being much of a problem for those who don’t.
As a rainy storm system was starting to pull away on the evening of Dec. 24, 2020, Arctic air was also rushing in behind the departing low-pressure system. This was fully expected to change rain to snow in those Southwest Virginia areas that usually get it — west of Interstate 77, higher elevations near the West Virginia state line.
But as new data began coming in on the afternoon and evening of Dec. 24, there were growing indications the snow would reach farther east. Maybe the New River Valley would get an inch or two in spots. Maybe the Roanoke Valley would get a brief spurt of Christmas Eve snow at the end of the rain. Maybe, just maybe.
The New River Valley, some higher elevations of the Blue Ridge south of Roanoke, and points west did in fact get accumulating snow that Christmas Eve — 3 to 5 inches in many locations. And snow made it all the way down to the urban floor of the Roanoke Valley — where just over an inch accumulated by early on Christmas morning, as the snow continued steadily for a short time after the clock struck midnight.
It couldn’t make it too many miles farther east before the low pulled away and the cold westerly downslope winds shut off the moisture, but a scenario with cold air catching up to the back side of moisture rarely makes it as far east as Roanoke with accumulating snow. Enough of a low-pressure wave formed along a cold front to keep moisture hanging back long enough for more cold air to catch up to the departing rain shield for longer than is typical.
Coming at the end of a long year of pandemic and during a contentious political season, a white Christmas seemed like a festive distraction, maybe even for some Scrooges and Grinches.
Consecutive white Christmases not long ago
In this century, 2009 and 2010 were, for many, the first back-to-back white Christmases since the early 1960s.
It might be hard for some to count 2009 because it rained all day into lingering snowpack from the widespread foot-plus storm a week earlier. That rain froze on trees and power lines in some of the higher elevations along the Blue Ridge, and thousands were without power in Floyd County and the Bent Mountain area of Roanoke County. Not a white Christmas that was merry or bright.
The following year produced a more postcard-type white Christmas, although, like 1969, most of the snow arrived after sunrise. Just enough snuck in early from Roanoke westward that Christmas morning dawned at least little white.
In 2010, we were in the perimeter of a storm that was more deeply affecting North Carolina and eastern Virginia. So Southside areas missed or fringed by some of the other white Christmases mentioned here got a little more snow than typically more snowy areas to the west and north.
Danville received 5.1 inches of snow on Dec. 25 and early on Dec. 26 in 2010 — remember Danville only got 4 inches before turning to rain in the epic 1969 Christmas storm. The 4.3 inches that fell before midnight on Dec. 25 made for its deepest white Christmas on record, though there are many holes in the data that might hide something going back to 1917.
For most of our region, this was 1-3 inches of snow, falling lightly but steadily into the evening — a pleasant snow for those who like it but not too painful for those who don’t.
Future of white Christmases?
Studies suggest that in a warming global climate, white Christmases are becoming and will become less frequent, even at latitudes north of ours.
Specific to our region, the data is just too sparse and erratic to establish a clear trend thus far. It’s hard to draw a trend line when 60 percent of Christmases in the 1960s were white but zero percent of those in the decades both preceding and following were.
Three white Christmases since 2000 and 20 percent of those halfway through the 2020s for about half our region do not seem to be oddly aberrant statistics.
Snowfall-related statistics are heavily tied to the specifics of variable short-term weather patterns, where a single large storm, or missing such a storm, can tilt the statistics heavily one way in a region compared to a neighboring one.
South Texas, all the way to the Mexican border, had a white Christmas in 2004, up to 10 inches in some places. That area is statistically showing a dramatic increase in Christmas snow in the 21st century versus the 20th because of that one extreme example.
Christmas miracles still happen, and the dream of a white Christmas will likely come true every now and then for Southwest and Southside Virginia in years to come, though more often than not, to the liking of many, Christmas will not be white.
Merry Christmas!
Whether you are happy or disappointed or neutral about the fairly typical weather this Christmas, please at least have a merry one. Thank you for your support of Cardinal Weather and do consider becoming a Cardinal News member by the start of the new year. But whether you do or not, I plan to keep following our region’s shifting weather for everyone who can click on this page for free with no annoying paywall. Merry Christmas!
Journalist Kevin Myatt has been writing about weather for 20 years. His weekly column, appearing on Wednesdays, is sponsored by Oakey’s, a family-run, locally-owned funeral home with locations throughout the Roanoke Valley. Sign up for his weekly newsletter:
