Once again, it seems very unlikely that we will have a white Christmas this year. The BBC weather forecast for Christmas Day in Birmingham is currently predicting temperatures of around 6 and 7 degrees celsius with lows of 3 degrees and sunny intervals and a gentle breeze on the big day.
Snow, sleet and rain moved across parts of Scotland, with Tulloch Bridge and Aviemore recording snowflakes, the Met Office said. The forecaster said this made Christmas Day 2023 an “official white Christmas”, which is defined by at least one snowflake falling on 25 December.
According to those maps, Scotland will get some snow on Saturday, December 23 and some parts of northern England will see snowfall on Christmas Eve. It forecasts that the most affected areas could witness up to 9.5 inches of snow on the ground.
The last time we saw a White Christmas in Birmingham was 2010. This was when snow was widespread across the UK. The 2010 White Christmas was reported as extremely unusual. It was the coldest Christmas ever recorded in the UK.
Where in the UK is most likely to have a white Christmas?
Edinburgh
Edinburgh! The capital city of Scotland has a 33.33 per cent chance of seeing snow this Christmas. The capital city of Scotland is one of the most beautiful cities in the UK.
Snow On Broad Street, 4K 60fps , Birmingham Will We Get A White Christmas?
Will we have a white Xmas 2023?
Met Office forecasters confirmed "some snow falling across the Scottish high ground" just after midday on Monday. Christmas 2023 is officially a white one - despite parts of the country reaching the highest minimum daily temperature on record for 25 December.
So, although some milder and unsettled weather appears likely, there could be prolonged spells of drier weather as high pressure becomes dominant. It could turn cold at times with the more blocked weather too, though confidence is low on how cold and where may be coldest and see risk of wintry weather.
The experts at OLBG have profiled the latest betting odds and statistics surrounding the chances of a White Christmas taking place in 2023 - and there's a 14.30% chance of snow in Birmingham, so it's not looking particularly promising at this moment in time.
Birmingham receives 1.6 inches of snow on average, with nearly one half (0.6 inches) falling in the first month of the year. 11.80 inches of snow fell in January 1936. An inch of snow or more falls generally every five years or so in Birmingham in January. January is the cloudiest month of the year.
The last few days of 2023 are forecast to be unsettled, with strong winds, rain and even snow featuring in parts of the UK. An area of low pressure which pushes in from the west on Saturday will be the most dominant feature in the forecast leading up to the new year.
When was the last time it snowed on Christmas Day UK?
This 'wet' snow is great if you want to channel your inner Elsa and make your own Olaf. Technically, 2022 was the last white Christmas in the UK, with 9 per cent of weather stations recording snow falling.
We can accurately forecast if snow is likely on any given Christmas Day up to five days beforehand. Since 1960, around half of the years have seen at least 5% of the network record snow falling on Christmas Day. This means we can probably expect more than half of all Christmas Days to be a 'white Christmas'.
“For widespread and substantial snow on the ground on Christmas Day, we have to go back to 2010,” said the Met Office spokesperson Nicola Maxey. Between 1960 and 2020, London had six white Christmases, Cardiff had four and Belfast and Edinburgh each had 11.
When was the last white Christmas in the Midlands UK?
The last proper white Christmas in the UK was 2010 when it was the coldest December in 100 years. Here in the Midlands, we had weeks of snow with frequent fresh falls. In that year 83 per cent of weather stations recorded snow on the ground on December 25 – the highest ever recorded by the Met Office.
For Birmingham, where nearly 100 years of weather records exist, there has never been a white Christmas in the classic sense. Perhaps the closest resemblance to a white Christmas in Birmingham, in recent years, was December, 2010.
January is normally the coldest month but there is not much difference from mid-December to mid-February. Overall, winters are relatively mild. Even in cold spells, it is unusual for the temperature to remain below freezing all day. Sub-zero cold is extremely rare, occurring only a very few times in recorded history.
The climate of Birmingham is oceanic, with quite cold, rainy winters and mild, relatively rainy summers. The city is located in west-central England, in the West Midlands, at an altitude of 140 meters (460 feet).
But what is proper snow? The last time Birmingham received a dumping of 'proper snow' was back in the winter of 2010 when the city experienced 11 snowy days leading up to Christmas.
The most recent time London had a snowy holiday was in 2022, with 2021, 2020, and 2017 also being classed white Christmases. But most of us think of a white Christmas as blankets of snow covering the UK – yet London hasn't seen a truly white Christmas for 20 years.
It doesn't snow in London very often – the last major snowfall was in 2009. But there is usually at least a small snow flurry for a few days most years, generally between November and April. It last snowed in London in January 2024.
Temperature-wise, it's estimated that 2023 will be the hottest year on record - and probably in the last 120,000 years - with the Met Office forecasting 2024 to be hotter still. The UK has already warmed by more than 1C above the pre-industrial average, leading to winters shortening and summers lengthening.
What will the weather be like in summer 2023 in the UK?
Summer 2023 was warmer and wetter than average with a record-breaking June. Autumn 2023 was milder and wetter than average, with a fine start, a very wet October and a run of named storms.
