You’ve got Christmas carols on the radio, presents piling up under the tree and stockings hung by the chimney with care.
Now all you need is some snow.
But, even though we may get a blast of the white stuff before the big day, a white Christmas is looking very unlikely, according to the National Weather Service.
While there’s still time and things can change, temperatures are well above average for this time of year.
“It doesn’t look like any real cold shots are coming around that time,” said Jim Mitchell, a meteorologist with the local National Weather Service office. “Precipitation-wise it looks like there’s no major storms for Christmas Eve or Christmas Day at this point, so relatively quiet and not very cold.”
He predicts a decent amount of rain Monday, then Monday night into Tuesday will likely be the region’s only foray into really wintry weather. Â
“We are gonna see a shot of decently colder air and that rain is gonna change to snow by late in the day Monday, Monday night,” he said.
He predicts that will result in 1 to 3 inches of snow in the Buffalo metro area and roughly 3 to 6 inches over the higher terrain of the Southern Tier.
“That’ll linger some into Tuesday but really start to dissipate toward Tuesday afternoon and then we’re pretty quiet again to the end of the week,” he said.
But any snow on the ground is not expected to last.
“Typically what we’ve seen with this pattern so far is you get a day of cold, maybe you get some snow but then it warms back up again,” Mitchell said. “You’re not sustaining the cold weather. Snow doesn’t stick around very long.”
Throughout recent years, the region has experienced above-average temperatures at Christmas, he said.Â
Last year saw the Christmas blizzard, when intense winds blew over warm lake waters, with the resulting snow trapping motorists, knocking out power and leaving dozens dead.
Yet the Christmas before that, the temperature was 50 degrees.
“We’ve had more green…
Read the full article here