Will Columbus Ohio see a white Christmas?

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — A blast of arctic air arriving at the end of the week likely ensures a white Christmas in central Ohio and virtually all of the Buckeye State. Frigid air will interact with a disturbance diving south across West into the southern Plains.

An intensifying low-pressure system will move through the Ohio Valley early Friday, with rain turning to snow, accompanied by powerful winds gusting to more than 40 mph, potentially creating blizzard-like conditions for several hours and hazardous travel conditions.

Frigid temperatures in the wake of the storm will keep whatever snow falls around for Christmas. Early indications are for a few inches of snow, augmented by lake-enhanced snow showers.

The historic probability of seeing at least an inch of snow on the ground Christmas morning in central Ohio is only about 25%, or 1 in 4 winters.

The Christmas holiday last year was exceptionally mild, with a high of 62 degrees in Columbus, and a soaking 0.82 of an inch of rain, the most on record for the date.

A more traditional snowy Christmas in 2020 followed a sharp drop in temperature on Christmas Eve from 53 to 17 degrees and 3.6 inches of snow ending early Christmas morning. Temperatures on Christmas Day ranged from 14 to 18 degrees, with a 3-inch snow cover.

Christmas 2020 tied 2004 for the most substantial snow depth in the past 25 years.

The warmest Christmas in Columbus weather records (since 1878) occurred in 1893 (64 degrees). The coldest in 1983 had a high temperature of 1 degree and a morning low of -12.

The snowiest Christmas Day goes way back to 1890 (7 inches), and the greatest cumulative snow depth of 9 inches was recorded in 1960. The 1960s featured a series of white Christmases unlike any other decade.