White Christmas in Toronto appears slim with warmer than normal December
Posted December 14, 2023 8:37 am.
The prospect of a white Christmas appears to be fading as the warm December weather continues, with the possibility of Toronto and the GTA hitting double digits on Friday.
The first official day of winter is a week away, on Dec. 21, and Christmas Eve is 10 days away, but the city still hasn’t seen snow on the ground — aside from a rain-snow mix earlier this month.
It has been a mild December temperature-wise in Toronto and that trend continues on Thursday with a forecasted high of 6 C and 10 C on Friday.
It is also expected to be mild through the weekend with highs between 6-8 C. The extended forecast for Toronto can be found here.
The average high of this time of the year is 2 C.
As Dec. 25 approaches, people are asking: will we be waking up to snow on Christmas Day?
“At this point, it is kind of like a 60-40 split, 60 per cent chance being more green and then white could actually be a little bit higher than that,” CityNews 680 meteorologist Jill Taylor said.
Taylor said cooler air could move in Christmas Day but that doesn’t necessarily mean snow.
Environment Canada defines a white Christmas as having two or more centimetres of snow on the ground as of 7 a.m. on Christmas Day.
A step further would be a ‘perfect white Christmas’ with two or more centimetres of snow on the ground and flurries flying on Christmas Day.
Statistics show between 1951 to 2021, Toronto has only a 51 per cent chance of a white Christmas. In recent years that probability has dropped to about 40 per cent.
In its winter weather previous released last month, the Weather Network said less snow than normal is expected in southern Ontario leading up to Christmas, but meteorologists say that if a storm track around the holidays ends up a little further north than expected, it could mean “a rather active winter pattern.”
The forecast notes that near-normal December temperatures are still cold enough for most areas to get messy winter storms, meaning a white Christmas remains a real possibility.
With files from Michael Ranger and Jill Taylor
