Good afternoon! Thanks for checking out today’s hazardous weather blog, brought to you by Mr. Quik Home Services out of Indianapolis! You can rely on Mr. Quik’s team of professionals for all your heating, cooling, plumbing, and electrical needs in your home! With Christmas next week and family gatherings planned, make sure your furnace keeps running! You can have peace of mind by checking out Mr. Quik’s $89 heating tune-up special! This will reduce expensive repairs with your heating system and increase its efficiency! Read more about it at mrquikhomeservices.com. Be sure to “LIKE” Mr. Quik on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MisterQuik/. Can you believe Christmas is just one week away? I thought a fun blog topic would be to look back at past Christmas weather for Indianapolis, and see where our odds stand for a White Christmas. This has turned into a discouraging month for snow lovers – Indy has received 0.5″ for the month. By this point, Indy averages 3.7″ of snow, so we are certainly running behind. We’ll take a look at some stats regarding Christmas snow climatology for Indianapolis along with temperature extremes, then take a glance at what the forecast is showing for this Christmas.
To refresh your memory, here is the observed weather for Indy for Christmas Day since 2000. In those 17 years, there were a total of five white Christmases, most recently just last year. Prior to that was 2010. Note in 2012, the day after Christmas saw nearly 8″ of snow in Indy.
Just looking at snow in general for Christmas Day, Indy has received snow of a trace or more 67 times since 1871. That’s a 46% shot of seeing snow falling on Christmas Day. Snow depth records have been kept for Indy since 1898, and since then there have been 59 times where at least a trace of snow was on the ground, ~40%. When you look at more meaningful snows on Christmas of 1″ or more, the probabilities are a lot lower. Looking at years that had at least 1″ of snow on the ground or occurring on that day, this happened a total of 34 times in the 146 year period of record. This means roughly a 23% chance of having this much snow on the ground Christmas morning. Bottom line, there is a better chance to see at least flakes falling than to have a meaningful amount of snow! Here are the years that featured either the most snow on Christmas Day itself or snow on the ground:
Here are the top 10 warmest and coldest Christmases. Since 1871, Indy has reached 50º+ twenty times, putting the probability at 14%. In contrast, the probability of a high temperature at or below freezing is higher at 41%.
Now that we have a good base of our snowfall chances based on the past, let’s talk about how the pattern is setting up as we head through Christmas. Based on the current forecast, the chances are not zero for a White Christmas in Indy. We are actually seeing HUGE differences in the modeling for Christmas Day. The American (GFS) and Canadian (GEM) models are dry and mild for Christmas Day. The current run of the European model has a snowstorm for Indy with highs on near the freezing mark. However, that model has little support within its own ensembles, meaning it could be a fluke run. There is a disturbance on all the models, but the other data keeps the pattern more progressive and doesn’t allow any of these to phase and become stronger. There are multiple pieces of energy being thrown across the lower 48 next week, spitting out from a low over the Aleutians of Alaska. Models are having a rough time figuring out what to do with these ripples of energy. Again, it will all come down to the timing and if any of these can phase to allow for any of these to become more interesting.
For example, here are the GFS ensembles for Christmas Day. This shows the range in outcomes from a dry day to a chance of snow in portions of the area.
Already strong signals for a big Plains storm system late next week. This looks to be a rain event for Indy, with a major snow event possible in the Plains.
Do you plow snow in the winter, and tired of depending on free weather sources that change on a dime? You can inquire for our forecasting services by going to bamwx.com/contact-us or e-mail [email protected]! We’d love to help your snow-removal business this winter season with accurate forecasts, 24/7 on-call service, and certified snow totals! Have a great day!
-Nathan Kitchens
