Wind warning for pre-Christmas travel, but will it snow on Christmas Day?
A windy big travel weekend
It’s just under a week until Christmas Day and some of us will no doubt be wondering what the weather has in store for the festive season.
The forthcoming big travel weekend may provide some challenges for people on the move, with a deep area of low pressure passing just north of the UK.
This will bring windy weather for all, but especially for Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England. There’ll be gales widely, but more exposed areas of northern and western Scotland, along with the north coast of Northern Ireland, could see gusts of 50-75mph.
Yellow weather warnings have been issued because wind gusts this strong will bring a risk of travel disruption – especially for ferries – but also high-sided vehicles. There could also be some localised power cuts.
Accompanying the strong winds, all areas will be buffeted with heavy showers or longer spells of rain, with sleet and snow over the hills and mountains.
However, beyond the weekend, it will settle down significantly, as high pressure starts to build.
Definition of a white Christmas
Before I get on to the detail of Christmas Day, it’s worth outlining the definition of a white Christmas for the UK.
For the Met Office to declare a white Christmas, a single snowflake has to be observed falling in the 24 hours of the 25th December by an official Met Office observer or automated weather station.
How likely is a white Christmas in the UK?
White Christmases for the UK are relatively common. Since 1960, around half of the years have seen at least 5 per cent of weather stations record snow falling on Christmas Day.
However, there are regional differences, meaning that snow falling on Christmas Day generally tends to be more common the further north and the higher up you go.
Widespread snow lying on the ground on Christmas Day happens much less often than snow falling. There have only been four years since 1960 when more than 40% of weather stations in the UK reported snow lying at 9am on Christmas Day – in 1981, 1995, 2009 and 2010.
When was the last white Christmas?
The last white Christmas was last year, when 11% of weather stations reported snow falling, although none with snow on the ground.
Prior to this, 2022, 2021 and 2020 were also white Christmases, albeit with fewer than 10% of weather stations having snow falling on the big day.
What about this year?
In a nutshell, if you’re hoping for a white Christmas this year, you’re going to be disappointed.
Despite still being six days away, there are unusually strong and consistent signals from all weather models for a settled, mild and largely dry Christmas Day.
Cloud amounts will vary, with the cloudiest skies in the north and west, and some rain and drizzle likely across western Scotland.
The best of any sunshine will be towards the south and east, where temperatures could reach as high as 13C – which is around five degrees above average for the time of year.
There are also signs that the settled weather may continue for a few days after Christmas too, which will be music to the ears of those doing a lot of travelling.
As ever, the final caveat is that Christmas is still six days away and there could be some minor tweaks to the forecast between now and then.
However, the chance of anything cold and snowy looks extremely unlikely this year – despite what some tabloid outlets have been incessantly and nonsensically headlining during the past few weeks.