A Holiday Forecast For the Record Books

by Angela Schilling, Meteorologist
December 23, 2011 8:19 PM


When it comes to the holidays the weather plays a huge role, especially if you’re going to be traveling whether that be on the road or up in the air.  This year is an odd one with some places receiving quite a bit of snow and others left with out.  Denver will receive a white Christmas once again, but in the northern plains a white Christmas will elude us this year, which means the roads should remain problem free around our neck of the woods.
So far this winter, systems have been having a mind of their own and traveling much farther south than normal.  In South Dakota this holiday weekend highs are forecasted to be in the middle to upper 40’s with lots of sunshine, a far cry from this time last year.  Head farther south in the country into New Mexico and western Texas and this year Christmas will be an unusual one, but for a much different reason.  It is not unheard for portions of New Mexico to receive a white Christmas especially in the higher elevations, but in west Texas it is a little bit more out of the ordinary.  In 2008 the state of New Mexico had around 2 feet of snow on the ground, mainly in the higher elevations.  2009 also proved to be a white Christmas for New Mexico.  Denver has had numerous Christmas snow events over the years, and this year is shaping up to be no different.  However, 2010 proved to be an odd year, with temperatures in the 50’s and mild conditions.  Turing the table in the oposite direction, just under 8 inches of snow fell in 2007.


Closer to home, cold temperatures and treacherous driving conditions usually comes with the Christmas season, this year however is quite the opposite.  The warmest Christmas Day on record was set in 1959 with 50 degrees, and the coldest Christmas was ten below set back in 1902.  2009 proved to be the snowiest Christmas on record with 10.5 inches of snow in the bucket, the previous record was set in 1945 with 10 ten inches reported.

We’ll have to keep an eye on temperatures this weekend, as we may break several records around the region.  The image below shows your holiday forecast as of Friday night.