White Christmas looks like a long shot for Charles City area

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

It’s beginning to look a lot like a snowless Christmas, with just a glimmer of hope for something fluffier and brighter before the holiday.

While some parts of the state have seen significant snowfall already this season, the chances of the Charles City having a white Christmas don’t look hopeful, if the forecast for this week is accurate.

According to the National Weather Service, there is a good chance of some snow on Wednesday, but less chance it will meet the official definition of a white Christmas — at least one inch of snow on the ground.

Since the National Weather Service began keeping track of snow depth on the ground in 1948, there has been a white Christmas in Charles City 52 out of 70 years where data is available — 74% of the time, or just under three-fourths of the time.

According to the historical data, the odds of having 3 or more inches of snow on the ground on Dec. 25 is 43%; the odds of having 6 or more inches is 19%; and in 7% of the years recorded there has been more than a foot of snow on the ground on Christmas day in Charles City.

Jeff Makowski, a forecaster and meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s La Crosse, Wisconsin, office that covers this area, said it’s probably getting too close to the holiday now for people to be wishing for a significant snow event.

“Most of us don’t want to see it snowing on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day because either we’re traveling somewhere or someone is traveling to you,” he said, although that could be less of a concern this year if more people stay home because of the pandemic.

In addition to many people looking forward to snow this season for the aesthetic beauty and winter activities, Floyd and area counties are currently “abnormally dry,” according to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor report, issued late last week.

The northwestern part of the state is in worse condition, with some areas designated extreme drought, and other western parts of the state ranging from abnormally dry to moderate drought to severe drought.

So far, Charles City is a little more than 3 inches below normal precipitation for the year, with more than a week left in December.

The rainfall in Charles City this past November was slightly above the average.

In addition to being drier, it was also warmer on average in November across the state. Temperatures averaged 5½ degrees above normal last month, making November 2020 in Iowa the 10th warmest on record, the state update said.

“Average precipitation in November is 2.05 inches, which drops to 1.35 in December,” the drought update said. “December, January and February are the three lowest moisture months of the year, averaging a total of only 4.3 inches of precipitation. This average dryness, combined with frozen ground, makes it more difficult to overcome dry conditions during the winter months.”