When it comes to traveling around the holidays, nobody likes to hear about a wintery commute.
But when it comes to Christmas morning, who doesn’t like the idea of a white Christmas? Let’s dive into Spokane’s chances of a White Christmas in 2018.
Snow is expected overnight from Saturday into Sunday and again on Monday, but accumulations look to be only in the one to three inch range. Along with this, temperatures in the afternoon may warm up enough to melt much of that snow away before Christmas morning.
So, it's safe to say we will likely see snow in the days leading up to Christmas, but it may not be around on Christmas morning. Furthermore, snow chances are low for Christmas morning itself, meaning that we likely will not see additional snow that morning, only some leftover snow from previous days.
This means that chances are high for snow over the weekend leading up to Christmas but much slimmer for a full inch or more of snow on the ground on Christmas morning.
Historically, going by yearly averages, we have about a 57 percent chance of a white Christmas year to year. That means that we have just over a 50/50 margin of seeing one inch of snow on the ground Christmas day.
2017 brought three inches of snow on the ground Christmas morning. That was thanks to a fresh two inches on Christmas Eve and six tenths of an inch on Christmas day.
In 2016 however, we saw no snow depth -- nothing on the ground Christmas day -- which led to no white Christmas. But as we head toward this El Nino winter we've been forecasting, chances show that we're likely going to be below average in terms of precipitation.
Maybe even only in the 20 to 25 percent range.