Christmas is only five days away, and cold air has swept in just in time for the official start of winter — which arrives at 10:59 a.m. on Tuesday. So you can’t blame anyone for wondering if this could boost our chances of getting a white Christmas in New Jersey this year.
Unfortunately, for all those dreamers out there, an unseasonable December warmup is on the way as we inch closer to the holiday weekend, according to the National Weather Service.
“It’s going to be a relatively warm Christmas,” said Sarah Johnson, a forecaster at the weather service’s regional office in Mount Holly.
Johnson noted there is some hope of seeing a few snowflakes in the air overnight on Christmas Eve (Friday night) into early Christmas morning (Saturday) — but “only if you’re in the higher elevations in northwestern New Jersey” or in the Poconos in northeastern Pennsylvania.
“Outside of that (region), the chances look pretty grim,” she said. Temperatures are expected to hover in the low to mid-30s during the early morning on Christmas Day but climb into the upper 40s to upper 50s in the afternoon, so scattered rain showers are far more likely than snow in most areas of the Garden State.
Christmas week has gotten off to a very cold start in the New Jersey region, but a substantial warmup is on the way as the holiday weekend approaches, weather forecasters say.National Weather Service
Temperatures in New Jersey on Dec. 25 usually range from lows in the upper 20s to around 30 degrees to highs in the low 40s.
While it’s still early enough for the forecast to change, as of now it is very unlikely any area — including the high-terrain areas — will get enough snow (1 inch or more measured on the ground on Christmas morning) to meet the informal definition of a white Christmas.
New Jersey’s odds of a white Christmas
Based on 30 years of snowfall and temperature data compiled by the National Weather Service, the New Jersey region has a low probability of having an inch or more of snow on the ground on any given Christmas Day.
Worth noting: The weather service’s parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, recently updated its historical data on white Christmas probabilities based on the latest block of 30-year stats, from 1991 to 2020.
In the latest data, the probability of a white Christmas actually went down in some regions of the country, including a wide swath from Maryland to Colorado and other cold states like Iowa, Illinois and Washington.
However, the probability went up slightly in other areas, including Newark (which rose from 13% to 13.5%), New York City (which climbed from 11.2% to 13.2%, according to AccuWeather) and Philadelphia (which jumped from 8% to 9%). Boston was among the Northeast cities whose chances went down slightly.
This map from the National Weather Service shows the historic probability of having at least 1 inch of snow on the ground on Christmas Day based on climate data from 1991 to 2020, the most recent 30-year period of stats.National Weather Service
For details on the historical chances of a white Christmas in hundreds of cities across the nation, check NOAA’s interactive map and click on the area you are interested in.
These are among the New Jersey towns and cities included on the map, and their statistical probability of seeing an inch of snow on Christmas morning on any given year:
- Sussex Borough, Sussex County: 38% chance
- Pottersville, Somerset County: 21% chance
- Cranford, Union County: 17% chance
- New Brunswick, Middlesex County: 17% chance
- Canoe Brook, Union County: 14% chance
- Harrison, Hudson County: 14% chance
- Wertsville, Hunterdon County: 14% chance
- Newark Airport, Essex & Union counties: 13.5% chance
- Hightstown, Mercer County: 12% chance
- Indian Mills, Burlington County: 12% chance
- Mount Holly, Burlington County: 12% chance
- Somerdale, Camden County: 11% chance
- Atlantic City Airport, Atlantic County: 7% chance
- Cape May, Cape May County: 7% chance
- Hammonton, Atlantic County: 7% chance
In December 2009, a big storm dumped nearly 2 feet of snow in southern New Jersey and 10 inches or more in central and northern New Jersey five days before Christmas. Pictured is a scene from Califon, where the snow lasted long enough to create a white Christmas that year.Matt Rainey | Star-Ledger file photo
Our last white Christmas
New Jersey has not seen a widespread white Christmas since 2009, according to climate records from the National Weather Service and the office of the New Jersey State Climatologist at Rutgers University.
The driving force in 2009 was a big storm that dumped nearly 2 feet of snow in southern New Jersey and 10 inches or more in central and northern New Jersey five days before Christmas. When Dec. 25 arrived that year, the ground was still covered with anywhere from 3 inches to 14 inches of snow.
On Christmas Day in 2012, a handful of towns in northern and western New Jersey had 1 to 2 inches of snow on the ground, and on Christmas Day in 2013 two climate reporting stations in northwestern New Jersey measured 1 inch of snow, but there was no widespread snow across the state.
Whether those two years can be classified as “white Christmases” for New Jersey is up for debate, but residents in some towns did have conditions that met the criteria of a white Christmas.
In December 2017, the northernmost counties of New Jersey got treated to a white Christmas — but for the rest of the Garden State, snow was a no-show. So that was considered a small-scale, isolated white Christmas instead of a widespread one.
And last year, virtually all of the snow from a strong coastal storm that hit New Jersey on Dec. 16 had melted by the time Christmas Day arrived.
Current weather radar
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Len Melisurgo may be reached at [email protected].