White Christmas

By Jene' Young Meteorologist

If you ever dream about a white Christmas along the Gulf Coast, better keep dreaming! White Christmas

Published: Tue, December 25, 2007 - 6:23 pm Last Updated: Tue, December 25, 2007 - 6:25 pm

Jene' Young

Like the lyrics of Bing Crosby's famous song, many people dream about a White Christmas. For those of us along the Central Gulf Coast, that dream rarely comes true.
Gary Beeler, the Warning Coordinator Meteorologist from the National Weather Service in Mobile says people in other parts of the country look at our snow and laugh cause they think it's funny!
"Any Christmas snow we got has been very little, a trace amount. The last year was 2004, before that 1989. And looking back since the 1870s, really the last ten years are the only times we have gotten snow on Christmas Day."

The biggest obstacle to a white Christmas is our lack of subfreezing temperatures, and precipitation occurring at the same time!

"The frequency of our snow is about once every ten years. I don't want to equate it to hurricanes, but that's kind of the average for a hurricane striking, about once every ten years. It's a rare event for it to occur on Christmas Day. Snow is rare anyway, but to have it occur on Christmas is very rare. The two times we had it in the past ten years, it's just been flurries.
Of course around here, flurries means snow."

If you want a white Christmas, Beeler says you would probably have to do the opposite of snowbirds. "Go north! Haven't you seen the news? It's just been snowing everywhere in the Midwest!

Beeler says the best chance we have for snow along the Central Gulf Coast occurs during January and February. But even then, it's generally a rare event. The most snow Mobile has received in recorded history occurred in 1895, when six inches fell.