There’s different ways to interpret how snow turns Dec. 25 into a white Christmas — meaning there’s different years for the last white Christmas in Boston, ranging from 2009 to 2019. Meteorologist Pete Bouchard explains.
Follow NBC10 Boston:
https://instagram.com/nbc10boston
https://tiktok.com/@nbc10boston
https://facebook.com/NBC10Boston
https://twitter.com/NBC10Boston
https://bsky.app/profile/nbcboston.bsky.social
Just about everyone loves a white Christmas, but there's actually more to it than simply whether there's snow on Dec. 25 — and there's some controversy, too!
The National Weather Service says 2019 was Boston's last white Christmas, based on areawide observations from co-operative weather observers), but I say it's 2017 and the purists actually say 2009. The difference revolves around the "official" definition of a white Christmas.
Long ago, the National Weather Service decreed that there must be at least 1inch of snow on the ground at exactly 7 a.m. Christmas morning to qualify as a white Christmas.
Slide the image above to see when Boston's last white Christmas was, depending on the interpretation.
I say humbug! The weather record for every other weather variable is precisely midnight to midnight on any given day. So why this exception for snow on Dec. 25?
I'm certainly not above the argument, and may need to check my ego here, but when we have storms like in 2017 — when the snow started after 7 a.m. — it makes it hard to defend the "Christmas snow rule."
If you took a poll, I'm sure 99.99% of people would have thought it was a white Christmas that year.
For the record, this year does qualify as a white Christmas, because it fulfills the strictest requirement of an inch or more of snow on the ground at 7 a.m. With temps staying below freezing overnight, our 4 inches of snow in Boston will certainly be there Christmas morning.
