It's unlikely that the Twin Cities and southern half of Minnesota will have a white Christmas this year, as a weather pattern that brought a hot and dry summer will likely hang around through the holidays.
Aside from the Red River Valley in northwestern Minnesota, the ground in the rest of the state is largely void of snow and it's likely to stay that way until the calendar turns to 2024, at least.
"Snow for the holidays, everybody loves that," said Brent Hewett, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service's office in Chanhassen. "But this year we likely won't see it."
The Twin Cities sees what's known as a brown Christmas — meaning less than 1 inch of snow on the ground — about 30% of the time, and this will likely be one of those years, Hewett said.
From 1899 through 2022, there have been 36 brown Christmases in the metro with a trace or less of measurable snow depth on Christmas morning when official readings are taken. The last time that happened was just two years ago, but measurable snow has been absent on Dec. 25 seven times since 2000, according to the Minnesota State Climatology Office.
In contrast, the deepest snow cover on record on Dec. 25 was a hefty 20 inches in 1983, the climatology office said.
For those chanting "Let is Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow" in hopes of bringing on a dumping or at least enough of the white stuff to shovel, Hewett, a winter enthusiast, does not see that happening.
The forecast for this week calls for moderate temperatures — from the 30s on Wednesday into the 40s Thursday through the weekend. And a long-range forecast suggests temperatures across Minnesota have an 80% chance of running above average through Dec. 25 with precipitation running below normal, according to the Climate Prediction Center.
