Temperatures are feeling much lower on Friday thanks to an Arctic Blast with icy winds from the north being pulled in behind the remains of Hurricane Kirk, which swept across the UK on Wednesday and Thursday. The sudden cold snap will last for a short while with the Met Office saying it will be ‘rather cold”.
But that could all change next week as the wind direction switches and we get stormy, warmer, weather from the south. The Met Office currently says we could see much colder weather, especially at night as we move through November.
And while the official forecaster won’t have its say ion a White Christmas until well into December, others are already seeing a good chance of snow on Christmas Day – for the first time in years.
The experts at OLBG have revealed the early predictions for the UK areas that could see snowfall on Christmas Day this year.
There is no surprise to see Scottish cities featuring highly in the odds of seeing snow on Christmas Day this year, with odds for all three Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen at 1/1. Newcastle is the top city in England to have snow with a 2/1 chance the city will see the white stuff on Christmas Day, followed by Leeds at 3/1.
2023 was declared as the UK’s hottest Christmas since 2016 after temperatures of 13.6C were recorded on December 25. Jake Ashton, Betting Expert at OLBG said: “Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh all sit at evens favourites to see snowfall on Christmas Day this year with potential Arctic conditions expected to stick in the North of the UK for the next few months.”
According to the Met Office: “Christmas is only at the beginning of the period when it’s likely to snow. We are more likely to see snow between January and March than in December, with snow or sleet falling an average 3.9 days in December, compared to 5.3 days in January, 5.6 days in February and 4.2 days in March.
“White Christmases were more frequent in the 18 th and 19 th centuries, even more so before the change of calendar in 1752 which effectively brought Christmas Day back by 12 days. Climate change has also brought higher average temperatures over land and sea and this generally reduced the chances of a white Christmas.”
The definition that the Met Office uses to define a white Christmas is for one snowflake to be observed falling in the 24 hours of 25 December somewhere in the UK.
Traditionally the Met Office used to use a single location in the country to define a white Christmas, which was the Met Office building in London. However, with the increase in betting on where will see a White Christmas, the number of locations have increased and can now include sites such as Buckingham Palace, Belfast (Aldergrove Airport), Aberdeen (Pittodrie Stadium, Aberdeen FC), Edinburgh (Castle), Coronation Street in Manchester and the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.
The Met Office said: “We can accurately forecast if snow is likely on any given Christmas Day up to five days beforehand. Since 1960, around half of the years have seen at least 5% of the network record snow falling on Christmas Day. This means we can probably expect more than half of all Christmas Days to be a ‘white Christmas’.
“However, the Dickensian scene of widespread snow lying on the ground on Christmas Day is much rarer. There has only been a widespread covering of snow on the ground (where more than 40% of stations in the UK reported snow on the ground at 9 am) four times since 1960—in 1981, 1995, 2009 and 2010.”
Technically, 2022 was the last white Christmas in the UK with 9% of stations recording snow falling, although none reported any snow lying on the ground. Before that 2021 and 2020 were also white Christmases, with 6% of weather stations recording snow falling in both years, but less than 1% of stations reported any snow lying on the ground in 2021 and only 4% in 2020.
The last widespread white Christmas in the UK was in 2010.