Ohio Valley Gets Lump of Christmas Coal, Not U.K.

While the I-95 corridor heads towards an unusual White Christmas, the Ohio Valley is going into the holiday with little to no snow on the ground -- and somebody must have been naughty because the northern Ohio Valley is normally assured a White Christmas (snow on the ground on December 25th) each year. The storm tracks have gone to their west and east and lake-effect has gone north. These maps illustrate this anomaly well:

Updating the graph I had shown earlier this month, Pittsburgh has improved and is halfway to their monthly normal but Cleveland is still sticking out like a sore thumb with only 1.7" of snow vs. their normal 18 for December!

Of course, we're only 1 day into winter and our Winter Forecast says that these areas will still accumulate their norm over the rest of the season. Here's a map of total snowfall this season (some zero values may be incorrect).

And here's a map of reported snow depths today:

Even a significant part of Scotland, Ireland and the United Kingdom are getting a White Christmas this year; they usually don't for the reason explained on the graphic below. For more information on their White Christmas, access our European Blog or Mark Vogan's.