Will Denver have a classic white Christmas?

Are you dreaming of a white Christmas? Weather experts say Denver is the most likely major U.S. city to get a snowy holiday, but the odds remain low.

Outside of oddball Christmas storms, chances of a white Christmas in the U.S. are becoming less and less likely with a trend of rising temperatures and warmer ocean waters, according to a December report released by AccuWeather meteorologists.

Denver has, on average each year, a 34% chance of seeing a classic white Christmas, according to AccuWeather data compiled over the past three decades.

The Colorado city ties with Chicago and beats out Indianapolis, Boston and New York by roughly 10% or more, AccuWeather meteorologists said in the report. Those four places make up the rest of the top five major cities with a historical likelihood of seeing a white Christmas.

The National Weather Service gives Colorado a slightly more optimistic estimate.

“If having a white Christmas means having one inch or more of snow on the ground, we have a 36% chance,”  said Maggie Ideker, a meteorologist with NWS’s Boulder office. “On the other hand, if a white Christmas means having measurable snowfall on Christmas Day, then the odds drop to about 14%.”

In the last 30 years, Denver has had only seven Christmas Days with measurable snowfall, about 23%, Ideker said. However, the city has seen Christmas mornings with snow already on the ground 13 times in that same period, about 43%.

AccuWeather defines a white Christmas as any Dec. 25 with 1 inch or more of snow on the ground, whether it was already there or it fell on Christmas Day.

It’s too soon to tell if Denver will get lucky with snow this year, Ideker said, adding that forecasters will have a better idea roughly a week ahead of the holiday.

Only a handful of the top 25 cities in the U.S. have more than a 1% likelihood of a white Christmas, according to AccuWeather meteorologists, which puts Denver far ahead of the crowd.

Denver last saw a white Christmas in 2022, when several days of winter weather and negative temperatures in the days before the holiday led to 2 inches of snow on the ground Christmas morning, according to NWS records.

AccuWeather meteorologists said 2022 was the most widespread white Christmas across the U.S. in the last 30 years, with more than half of the country being covered in snow.

The last white Christmases in Denver before 2022 came in a pair when heavy snow hit the city on Christmas Day in both 2014 and 2015, NWS records show.

Having two white Christmases in a row is “extremely rare,” according to NWS forecasters. It was also the first time on record that Denver got multiple inches of snow on Christmas itself, instead of the days leading up to the holiday, two years in a row.

Denver’s heaviest snowfall on Christmas Day was 7.8 inches in 2007, according to NWS records. The greatest snow depth ever recorded on the ground in Denver on Christmas morning was 24 inches, measured after the Christmas Eve blizzard of 1982.

Outside of major cities, AccuWeather meteorologists said towns in the mountains across the western U.S. and Rocky Mountains have much better odds of a white Christmas.

Ski towns in Colorado — including Winter Park, Aspen, Steamboat Springs, Breckenridge and Telluride — range from a 94% to 99% historical probability of a white Christmas, according to AccuWeather data.

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