I'm Dreaming Of A White Christmas . . .

As you might expect, the government assigns numbers to things like this. Probabilities based on historic performance, or something like that. The National Climatic Data Center looked at the thirty year period 1961 - 1990 and came up with this map which indicates how likely any give location is of having at least one inch of snow on the ground on Christmas morning.

They are quick to point out this is not a forecast, just the statistical odds of a White Christmas. If you're looking for a forecast, our friends at AccuWeather.com do a daily update which can be found here.

It's a funny thing, snow at Christmas. Everybody wants to wake up to that fresh blanket of powdery snow. The perfect postcard Christmas. But, we all want the sidewalks shoveled and the roads cleared in time to go over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house. In 2004, we had the perfect White Christmas here in South Texas. Just before midnight on Christmas Eve it began to snow. By sunrise on Christmas day, we had about three inches of snow on the ground, the first measurable snow in 109 years and the first recorded snow on Christmas ever! By 3pm, the temperature was back into the 50s and by sunset, nearly all of the snow was gone. Now that's the kind of White Christmas I'm dreaming of.