How likely is it to be a White Christmas in Sheffield this year

The temperatures have recently plummeted and Yorkshire has had its first flurries of snow, but will Sheffield see a white Christmas this year?
The temperatures have recently plummeted and Yorkshire has had its first flurries of snow, but will Sheffield see a white Christmas this year?The temperatures have recently plummeted and Yorkshire has had its first flurries of snow, but will Sheffield see a white Christmas this year?
The temperatures have recently plummeted and Yorkshire has had its first flurries of snow, but will Sheffield see a white Christmas this year?

Here’s everything you need to know.

What is a white Christmas?

The temperatures have recently plummeted and Yorkshire has had its first flurries of snow, but will Sheffield see a white Christmas this year?The temperatures have recently plummeted and Yorkshire has had its first flurries of snow, but will Sheffield see a white Christmas this year?
The temperatures have recently plummeted and Yorkshire has had its first flurries of snow, but will Sheffield see a white Christmas this year?

The definition that the Met Office uses to define a white Christmas is for one snowflake to be observed falling in the 24 hours of 25 December somewhere in the UK.

Traditionally, they used to use a single location in the country to define a white Christmas, which was the Met Office building in London.

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However, with the increase in betting on where will see a white Christmas, the number of locations have increased.

Sites now include Buckingham Palace, Belfast (Aldergrove Airport), Aberdeen (Pittodrie - Aberdeen FC), Edinburgh (Castle) and Coronation Street in Manchester.

When was the last white Christmas in Sheffield?

According to the Met Office: “The last official white Christmas was in 2010, when snow was widespread across Northern Ireland, Scotland, parts of Wales, the Midlands, north-east and far south-west England.”

Will there be a white Christmas in Sheffield this year?

According to the Met Office, the UK is “more likely to see snow between January and March than in December with snow or sleet falling an average 3.9 days in December, compared to 5.3 days in January, 5.6 days in February and 4.2 days in March.”

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“White Christmases were more frequent in the 18th and 19th centuries, even more so before the change of calendar in 1752 which effectively brought Christmas day back by 12 days.

“Climate change has also brought higher average temperatures over land and sea and this generally reduced the chances of a white Christmas.”

Met Office forecaster, Nicola Maxey, said: “It is still too early to predict whether Yorkshire will see a white Christmas or not. The science simply does not exist to make weather predictions that far in advance.”

However, with snow already making an appearance this winter and last year’s beast from the east, there’s still a chance that this Christmas could be a white one.