With Chicago getting its first snowfall of the season, it feels like an appropriate time for Old Farmer’s Almanac to release their Christmas weather predictions.
According to the National Weather Service, the city of Chicago routinely gets a so-called “White Christmas” just 41% of the time (at least in terms of having an inch or more of snow on the ground on the holiday), but will this year provide residents with a festive coating of snow for the holiday?
The Old Farmer’s Almanac recently released its Christmas weather predictions, covering the week leading up to the holiday and the weekend following that date at the end of December.
The verdict?
According to the Almanac’s prediction, snowy conditions are indeed possible in the Chicago area and for other parts of the Midwest, with colder-than-normal temperatures expected according to their calculations.
In fact, the Almanac says that the Chicago area could see “cold to very cold” conditions, and that residents should expect “snowy periods” around the holiday.
Elsewhere, the publication is calling for warmer-than-normal temperatures for most of the western United States, along with colder-than-normal conditions in New England.
Many meteorologists dispute the accuracy and the methodology employed by the Farmer’s Almanac and caution against such long-range predictions.
The Farmer’s Almanac claims a success rate of 80-to-85%, though many media studies have contested that figure. One such study, conducted by the University of Illinois and cited by Popular Mechanics, holds that the Old Farmer’s Almanac is only correct 52% of the time, which essentially represents the odds of a coin flip landing on either heads or tails.
Accurately predicting weather beyond two weeks can be particularly challenging.
According to the National Weather Service, a “White Christmas” is defined as having at least one inch of snow on the ground on Christmas Day. The city of Chicago according to NWS data has had a “White Christmas” 41% of the time since record-keeping began in the 1870s.
The normal high for December 25 is approximately 34 degrees, and the normal low is around 22 degrees.
The last few years have given the city of Chicago a bit of a taste of both worlds. In 2022, the last time Chicago had a “White Christmas,” the city experienced one of its coldest Christmases on record, with the high reaching just 14 degrees.
The following year, Chicago had its second-warmest Christmas ever, with the high hitting a balmy 59 degrees.
Last year, Chicago’s high temperature on Christmas was 39 degrees, and a snowfall that had occurred on December 20 had melted by the time the holiday arrived, according to NWS data.
As for this year’s holiday season, the Climate Prediction Center’s monthly forecast only covers November, but it calls for Chicago to potentially see above-average temperatures through the end of the month.
Its three-month outlook also leans toward above-average temperatures for the period from November to January, with a lean toward above-average precipitation during that time.
Notably, a La Niña pattern is also expected to hold through February, which typically results in more frequent snowfall in years when the pattern is stronger.