Meteorologists predict a “brown” Christmas this year with no snow falling in the foreseeable future — or at least the next 10 days.

In line with what is to be expected from an El Niño year, the area is seeing warmer temperatures and less precipitation than normal, according to Joe Calderone, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Twin Cities office.

And that means no snow on Christmas.

“That’s the way we’re trending,” he said, noting that while temperatures on Christmas and the days surrounding it won’t be as high as the 50s, it will still be higher than normal.

Toward the end of next week and into the weekend, temperatures are expected to be in the low to mid-40s, he said. The normal this time of year would be highs in the upper 20s and low 30s, he said.

This pattern will continue through Christmas week, he said.

The next chance of precipitation is on Dec. 22 and that’s only a 20-30 percent chance, he said. And if there is any, it won’t be cold enough to turn into snow.

“If there is any precipitation, if there is anything, it would be rain,” he said.

When will the snow fall?

“There is no indication any time soon of any major snow systems in the near future,” Calderone said.

A white Christmas has happened 71 percent of the time in the last 124 years, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources

From 1899 to 2022, there were 36 “brown Christmases,” with either no or a trace reported snow depth on Christmas.

The last brown Christmas was in 2021 when warm temperatures melted snow on the ground on Christmas Eve.

There was also no measurable snow on the ground Dec. 25 in 2015 and 2018.

The deepest snow cover on record on Dec. 25 was in 1983 with a hefty 20 inches and a high of one degree, according to the DNR.

But the coldest Christmas in the Twin Cities was in 1996 with a high temperature of 9 below zero. The warmest Christmas was 51 degrees in 1922.

“There was not a white Christmas that year. In fact, the Minneapolis Weather Bureau log book for that day states that the day felt ‘spring-like,’” the DNR wrote.

For the month of December, 11.9 inches of snowfall is considered normal for the Twin Cities. As of Friday, only 1.3 inches of snow had fallen.

Chances each year for a white Christmas vary across the rest of the state. Parts of southwestern Minnesota see white Christmases as little as 55 percent of the time, while in parts of northern Minnesota, it’s a near certainty, according to the Minnesota Climatology Working Group.

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