With warm temperatures returning, it’s going to be nip and tuck how white this Christmas will be. South-facing lawns could be pretty green when Santa arrives, but from the perspective of winter-lovers, things sure are better than last year.
At this time in 2015, the National Weather Service gauge at Concord Airport had registered zero December days in which the thermometer stayed below freezing all day. Worse from winter-lovers’ points of view, we had already seen seven days – a full third of the month – in which temperatures topped 50 degrees – virtually subtropical for this time of year.
By contrast, December 2016 in Concord has seen six days that stayed below freezing all day, including last Friday with a high temperature of a bone-chilling 9 degrees and a low of 3 below zero. Only two days this month have topped 50, and they were the first two days of December.
Among those most pleased are ski areas, which have been making snow like crazy to prepare for the important Christmas school break.
So we’re back to normal? Slightly below normal, actually: The average temperature through Monday was 4 degrees below the historic average. It was almost 8 degrees above the average last year.
As a sign of the change: Jon Spence, the official ice-measurer on Big Squam Lake, reported Tuesday that Squaw Cove already had ice that was 8 inches thick, raising hope the traditional ice harvest – which requires ice at least a foot thick – could happen in January.
But it takes more than cold to have a white Christmas.
The roughly four inches of snow that fell both on the 12th and on the 17th of this month gave us a proper Currier & Ives look until the weekend warm rain washed at least half of the snowpack away.
There’s a chance of snow Thursday night in Concord, although it will probably be less than an inch, and the rest of the lead-up to Christmas looks sunny, with temperatures rising above freezing at least part of the day.
So it should be mostly white outside when the presents are being opened, but not overly so.
Still, that’s also better than last year: We had zero-point-zero inches of snow until Dec. 29.
(David Brooks can be reached at 369-3313 or dbrooks@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @GraniteGeek.)
