A White Christmas in Massachusetts? AccuWeather is out with possible holiday forecast
With Christmas less than four weeks away, long-range forecasters are out with their predictions for which parts of the country are more likely to have snow on the ground for the holiday.
There’s always a chance for a white Christmas in Massachusetts, but it appears the Northeast has a below-average chance of snow on the ground this year, according to AccuWeather.
“We’re actually kind of in that normal zone for (the Northeast) just in case we get one of these sneaky, late-December systems coming in there,” Senior Meteorologist Paul Pastelok said. “But I do feel like the probability of a white Christmas in Boston, New York, D.C. and Baltimore is slightly lower.”
Snow will likely be on the ground in higher elevations throughout the Northeast.
With the La Niña climate phase in place, areas across the interior Northeast, Northwest and upper Plains will have a higher probability than average for a white Christmas. La Niña tends to steer storms northward, cutting the southern portion of the U.S. off from moisture.
AccuWeather’s criteria for a “white Christmas” centers around having at least an inch of snow on the ground for the holiday.
With the La Niña phase favoring a northern storm track, the southern branch tends to get cut off most of the time, Pastelok said, but he noted that there have been some exceptions. During the winter of 2020 into 2021, systems early on dipped into the south with some reaching all the way into Mexico.
However, Pastelok said that this year conditions are set up differently and the southern states should have “more of a traditional La Niña” pattern, at least during the first part of the season.
from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3rtm4Yk
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