Wet days ahead
Likelihood of white Christmas lessens each year
If you’re dreaming of a white Christmas, it may be just that — a dream.
Chances are mixed for seeing the white stuff this year on Christmas Day, according to Weather Network meteorologist Dayna Vettese.
A white Christmas is defined as having two centimetres or more of snow on the ground. While there’s a chance it could happen, it may not last for long.
“For the Cape Breton region it doesn’t look like it will be a white Christmas unless you’re up in the highlands — there is a little bit of snow up that way,” said the Toronto-based forecaster. “Unfortunately it does look like it might be a green Christmas heading into the weekend. We do have a storm system moving in on Christmas Day or late Christmas Eve and they might bring us a bit of snow.”
Vettese says there will be one system arriving over the weekend while the other one will head into Christmas Day.
“For the first one it looks like we might get a mix of both rain and snow depending on where you are in Cape Breton so that might melt away as we get some warmer temperatures on Sunday, but late Sunday into Monday we have another system coming through and depending on where that tracks we may actually get some fresh snow for Christmas Day,” said Vettese.
While it all depends on temperatures and on Christmas Day they’re expected to be around 3 C, Vettese says the possibility of Sydney having a white Christmas diminishes each year.
“You have about a 40 per cent chance for Sydney to see a white Christmas,” said Vettese. “It’s less than a 50 per cent chance but it’s not impossible.
Decades back, the probability of a white Christmas in Sydney was much higher at around 68 per cent.
“It has gone down over the
last couple of decades.”
Accuweather Canada is predicting some snow on Christmas morning with snow, sleet and freezing rain in the afternoon while Environment Canada is predicting snow in the day and rain or snow at night.
According to the Weather Network, the week between Christmas and New Year’s is expected to be more seasonal with colder temperatures and the potential for an active storm track impacting the region.