The Weirdest White Christmases We’ve Seen In The US, And Who Could Wake Up To One In 2024

A​ white Christmas is only expected to be in the cards for a small percentage of the United States this year, but in years past, it's happened in some of the most unexpected locations.

December got off to a cold start for much of the country, elevating dreams of a white Christmas in usually snowless locations. But chances are that if you don't have snow on the ground already, it likely won't happen before Christmas unless you are in the extreme northern tier of the country, or much higher elevations in the Mountain West.

Meteorologists qualify a white Christmas as one with at least an inch of snow on the ground on Christmas morning.

Last Christmas morning had the least snow coverage since records began in 2003, and this year could be even less snowy. Even some of the northernmost cities, where a white Christmas is usually guaranteed, might be snowless this year.

A​s you can see below, the snow cover map is sparse, even in the northern U.S.

(​MORE: White Christmas Forecast | America's Brownest Christmas In 20 Years)

Here are the strangest white Christmases we've seen. Let's go back in history and flip this around, examining five places where snow is more unusual but once managed to keep it on the ground Christmas morning. In some of these places, snow was a once-in-a-lifetime event, much less happening in time for the holiday.

5​. Pacific Northwest (2008)

Did you know some places farther north than Minneapolis don't often see snow?

Despite the nearby Cascades picking up feet of snow, Seattle averages only 6 to 7 inches a year. This is because a typical Pacific storm pumps in relatively warm, moist air into western Washington.

B​ut in late December 2008, cold air spilled south out of Canada and locked into the Pacific Northwest for almost two weeks. During that stretch, Seattle picked up almost 14 inches of snow, leaving 4 inches on the ground Christmas morning, with light snow falling on the holiday.

P​ortland, Oregon, had 10 inches of snow cover on Christmas, by far its all-time record for the holiday, in a city with historically only a 4% chance of a mere inch of Christmas snow depth.

Despite the romanticism of a rare White Christmas here, this prolonged cold, snowy stretch was very disruptive. Chains were required on all vehicles in the Portland metro, and some cars were abandoned in snow drifts.

Surface streets in Seattle remained snow-packed, rutted and slushy, leaving some helpless drivers skidding downhill into other cars. Flights were canceled and passengers were stranded at both Portland and Seattle-Tacoma airports.

(Further beef up your forecast with our detailed, hour-by-hour breakdown for the next 8 days – only available on our Premium Pro experience.)

4. Tucson, Arizona (1987)

Snow in the Desert Southwest's higher elevations is common. This includes Flagstaff (elevation 7,014 feet) and Prescott (5,045 feet), Arizona.

But snow on the valley floor is rarer.

S​o imagine the excitement when 3.6 inches of snow fell from Christmas Eve through Christmas Day 1987 in Tucson, Arizona, the city's only white Christmas on record. Prior to that, there had been only 14 days in the city's history since 1894 that had an inch of snow on the ground.

Mt. Lemmon Ski Valley, at around 9,100 feet elevation, offers skiing within about a 30-minute drive of downtown Tucson. But in 1987, you didn't have to make that drive to see snow during that surreal, historic Christmas.

3. Blizzard, Southern Style (2009)

A photo like the one below may be something you see in the Dakotas, northern New England, or the mountains of the West in a typical blizzard. But it was taken in Oklahoma City.

Christmas Eve 2009 was Oklahoma City's snowstorm of record. An incredible 13.5 inches of snow, accompanied by wind gusts over 60 mph, brought the city to a standstill.

Will Rogers Airport was shut down, stranding passengers and workers. By the time the airport reopened on Christmas Day, only one of three runways was cleared. A state of emergency was declared in Oklahoma. Stretches of interstates 44, 40, and 35 were closed. Cars were abandoned in heavy snow on Oklahoma City freeways.

T​he snow even extended deep into Texas. Dallas-Fort Worth picked up 3 inches of snow, its first measurable Christmas Eve snow. It was the first white Christmas in the Metroplex since 1926. Well northwest of Fort Worth, up to 9 inches of snow and wind gusts up to 65 mph whipped drifts up to 5 feet, stranding motorists in Montague County.

At one point on Christmas Eve, an almost continuous 1,200-mile-long swath of the Plains was in a blizzard warning, from Texas to Canada.

D​ue in part to this expansive blizzard, 63% of the Lower 48 states was snow-covered on Christmas Day 2009, the nation's most expansive blanket of snow on the holiday since 2003.

2. Florida, Southeast Coast (1989)

In December 1989, Arctic air plunged into northern Florida, changing rain to a wet snow in both Tallahassee and Jacksonville on Dec. 22 and 23.

In Jacksonville, 1 inch of snow covered the ground on Christmas Eve, the only time an inch or more snow depth has been measured there dating to 1893. The 1989 storm was one of only four days of measurable snow on record in Jacksonville.

Technically, it wasn't a white Christmas. But don't tell that to kids who rode makeshift sleds or those stuck on icy roads in the city.

T​his pre-Christmas storm brought the only white Christmas on record to both Charleston, South Carolina (4 inches on the ground), and Savannah, Georgia (2 inches). In each city, snow was on the ground four days in a row from Dec. 23-26. Imagine building a snowman on the South Carolina coast.

P​arts of the coastal Carolinas picked up more than a foot of snow, including 15 inches in Wilmington, its biggest snowstorm on record, according to weather historian Christopher Burt. Winds whipped snow drifts up to 8 feet high in some areas of the coastal plain, Burt told weather.com.

T​o top it off, Wilmington, North Carolina, plunged to 0 degrees on Christmas Day 1989, its all-time record low.

1. South Texas (2004)

T​he photo below looks like any other wintry scene, except for the palm trees.

N​ot only did Brownsville, Texas – roughly the same latitude as Miami – pick up 1.5 inches of snow, its first measurable snow since February 1895, but it did so on Christmas Day 2004. The National Weather Service characterized this confluence of events as "a historical first according to more than 150 years of weather data."

T​his freak event was also an all-time record snowstorm in Victoria, Texas (12.5 inches), and blanketed Corpus Christi with 4.4 inches. Generally, 1 to 3 inches of snow fell across the southern suburbs of Houston, south of Interstate 10, including Pearland and Friendswood. Four inches of snow blanketed Galveston Island and Jamaica Beach.

The satellite image, once skies cleared, of this South Texas Christmas snowpack remains one of the most bizarre weather images of my meteorological career.

Imagine the sheer wonder of kids who had never seen snow before experiencing this – on Christmas, no less.

Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. His lifelong love of meteorology began with a close encounter with a tornado as a child in Wisconsin. He studied physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, then completed his Master's degree working with dual-polarization radar and lightning data at Colorado State University. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on X (formerly Twitter), Threads, Facebook and Bluesky.