Dreaming of a White Christmas?
Sorry, wrong White. That is White Goodman from the movie Dodgeball.
You mean a White Christmas with snow and cold? That one? Alright. Well let’s take a look….
PAST DATA
Recall that a “White Christmas” has a technical definition. It is when there is 1″ of snow on teh ground at some point during Christmas Day. Historically, the Pine Belt has never had an official White Christmas. But oh, man, has the area been close, though.
In 2010, it snowed on Christmas eve… In a few spots. It didn’t really accumulate. But that’s as close as the Pine Belt has ever been.
The raw data does show some cool information, though!
While the Pine Belt has never received snow, it has received rain on roughly 35-percent of Christmas days on record. And more than an inch of rain on eight-percent of Christmases.
And on 85-percent of Christmases, the temperature was warmer than 50-degrees in the afternoon.
It is much more likely that the area tag 80 degrees, than stay below 32. South Mississippi has tagged 80 a few times. The first time was 1955. The last time? 2015. It was close in 2016 at 79F.
It’s not all bad news. Dating back to 1893, 35-percent of Christmas Days in the Pine Belt feature temperatures at 32 (or below) at any point during the day.
So, another way to think about it, once every three years it’ll be at or below freezing in the morning. Not bad. And less than 1-percent of the time are we below-freezing for a high temperature.
OTHER SPOTS
Here is a quick look at some of the other weather recording spots across the region…
You may notice a trend that there aren’t any spots with an official White Christmas.
BIGGER PICTURE
I’ve heard from a lot of people that say it isn’t as cold as it used to be in December around here.
That isn’t wrong. But it isn’t fully correct, either.
Since 1970, if you track the monthly average temperature for December it has flip-flopped quite a bit. There have been 18 years with noticeably-above-average temperatures and 23 noticeably-below-average temperatures.
There are some cool tidbits you can pull out of the graph here, too!
The eye-ball test tells you that means when it is warmer than average for the month, it is more likely to be much-warmer-than-average than when it is cooler-than-average.
The trend line on the graph shows where average is, too. Notice the line doesn’t have much of a slope to it. That means, that since 1970, our December average temperature hasn’t changed much at all.
Looking at the individual dots, you can see that back in the 1970s we had a handful of years – in a row, even! – that were below the line, and that means below-average. That is why some of you might think, “hey, when I was a kid, it was much colder in the winter! What gives?!”
Also notice that around 1990, there are a handful of dots – in a row, too! – above the line, meaning above-average temperatures. That’s why some of you may think, “It was warmer in December when I was a kid!”
The SUPER cool factoid in this pops out when you compare that to the seasonal warming chart for the entire state. The winters for the entire state of Mississippi winters are warming up faster than any other season.
But wait?! The trend line for our area in December is flat! What gives?
Well, one hypothesis (mine) I have is that the change in our climate has eased the Jet Stream further north in the winter.
For us? Well we have always been on the south side of the average Jet Stream. We always have warm days in December. We have always had storms. We rarely get snow.
But for places like Jackson, Oxford, Starkville, and Tupelo… The change in the Jet Stream means those places are more often on the southern side of the Jet Stream. That means more warm days for them in a season where they didn’t used to get that warm.
So, while they say, “what happened to my cold and snow?” We are down here looking around going, “hey, no change here!”
