As we enter the final days before Christmas and temperatures begin to plummet once more, the thoughts of many Britons are inevitably turning towards whether the country will finally see the fabled blankets of snow we promise ourselves every year on a million greetings cards but which rarely actually materialise.
Our obsession with the phenomenon cannot be blamed solely on Charles Dickens, who depicted memorably snowy Christmases in The Pickwick Papers and “A Christmas Carol”, as it was a regular occurrence between 1550 and 1850, when the UK was in the grip of a “Little Ice Age” and endured temperatures so low that it was still possible to hold a “Frost Fair” on the frozen surface of the River Thames in London as late as the winter of 1813/14.
Bing Crosby’s famous song “White Christmas” from the 1954 film of the same name, first groaned by the American crooner in the earlier Holiday Inn, has also unquestionably played an important role in planting the idea within the popular imagination, its association of the yearning for winter snows with sorrow at the loss of one’s youth as irresistibly poignant a theme as it is universal.
So how about our prospects for 2021?
Well, the latest forecast from the Met Office indicates that the far north of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland currently have the best chance of seeing snowfall on Saturday 25 December.
Recommended Chance of white Christmas across northern parts of UK Christmas: From Scrooge to George Bailey and the Grinch, the inspiration behind our favourite festive stories Christmas song royalties: How much do Wham!, Mariah Carey and The Pogues earn every year?
“With colder air meeting milder air over the UK, the specific details of the forecast for Christmas Day are still a little uncertain,” said Helen Caughey, the Met Office’s deputy chief meteorologist.
“Milder air moves north east over much of the country by the middle of the week, with spells of rain for most at times, which will turn to snow over higher ground in northern Scotland initially.
“The boundary between the milder and colder air is then forecast to sink south later on Christmas Eve and through Christmas Day, introducing colder, clearer conditions for some.
“However exactly where this boundary gets to is hard to pin down at the moment, and is key as to where can expect any snow over Christmas.”
Whatever the cards may promise, the fact is that the weather on Christmas Day has been incredibly variable for decades, with the coldest temperature ever recorded in the British Isles an astonishing -18.3C, which struck Gainford in Durham in 1878, according to the Met Office.
By contrast, the warmest was a positively sweltering 15.6C, which was noted in Killerton, Devon, in 1920.
The deepest snow ever seen on Christmas morning was the 47cm recorded at Kindrogan in Perthshire, Scotland, in 1981.
In the 21st century, the looming spectre of climate change means we can expect higher temperatures over land and sea, which would in turn suggest the chance of a White Christmas in Britain is now less likely.
But the Met Office does offer grounds for hope on that point, declaring: “The natural variability of the weather will not stop cold, snowy winters happening in the future. In fact, in terms of widespread sleet/snow falling across the UK on Christmas Day, between 1971 and 1992 there was only one year (1980), whereas in the years 1993 to 2004 there were six such occasions.”
The yardstick for ruling that a White Christmas has occurred used to be a lone snowflake being spotted falling on the Met Office operations centre in London but, since the service moved to Exeter in September 2006, the phenomenon is now officially confirmed if so much as a single snowflake is spotted falling at any point within the 24 hours of 25 December at one of 12 major UK airports.
Snow falls over the South Bank of the Thames in central London
(Shutterstock)
Technically, the last White Christmas in the UK took place on 25 December 2017, when 11 per cent of British weather stations reported snow falling, even though none of it settled on the ground.
We did see flurries of snow on the ground in 2015 but the last really significant and widespread deluge came in 2010, the coldest December in a century, when 83 per cent of weather stations reported flakes on the pavement.
Bookmaker William Hill, basing its calculations on information from Exacta Weather and sidestepping a difference of opinion between the BBC and the Met Office, says Edinburgh and Newcastle are its current joint favourites at 10/11, followed by Glasgow (5/4), London City Airport (7/4) and Leeds-Bradford and London Gatwick (both locations 9/4).
Belfast is at 1/4, Birmingham and Manchester are both at 3/1, Liverpool and Dublin are both at 7/2 and Bristol and Cardiff are both at 4/1.
Rupert Adams, a spokesperson for William Hill, said: “This is the first significant movement in the market and it has been a number of years since we made any of the station’s odds on. It will come as a real shot in the arm for those hoping to wake up to blankets of snow on Christmas Day.
“While the battle between the BBC and the Met Office is an intriguing one, what it does show is that next week’s forecast comes with a huge dose of uncertainty. But we’ll continue to monitor things, as we have done since the summer, and indeed for many years, and adjust accordingly. That’s exactly what we’ve done in this instance.”
Also offering odds on a winter wonderland in 2021 is Coral, which has cut its odds on a White Christmas from 4/6 to 1/3 and fancies Edinburgh (2/1), Glasgow and Newcastle (both 5/2) as its most likely locations, ahead of Manchester (3/1) and London (4/1).
“We are one week away from the big day now, and with temperatures set to drop over the next seven days, the chances of a White Christmas are increasing all the time,” said spokesman John Hill.
Recommended Beauty advent calendars 2021: Our guide to this year’s top treats 13 best tech gifts to spoil a gadget geek this Christmas 10 best luxury Christmas crackers for dressing up your dining table
“Our betting indicates there is a 75 per cent chance of snow falling on Christmas Day in the UK.”
Keep dreaming.