What Are The Chances of Boise Having a White Christmas in 2021?

Raise your hand if you enjoyed the few minutes of snow showers we got to enjoy on Monday! Boise's actually overdue for its first true snowfall of the season. Will the white stuff arrive in time for Christmas Day? 

When you look at all the snowfall records the National Weather Service has kept for Boise since 1899, it's pretty typical for us to get our first measurable snowfall of the year around November 22. This year, we've had a trace of snow on November 19, November 23 and December 6 but no measurable snowfall in the Treasure Valley.

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Some of us are grateful that the flakes we have seen aren't sticking. That makes the commute into the office and the drop-offs at school a lot easier. Others of us wish there was some glittering snow on the ground to make it feel more like the Christmas season.

Unfortunately, the odds of Boise having a White Christmas are pretty darn slim. The National Weather Service considers a "White Christmas" a December 25 where there is more than an inch of snow on the ground at the present-day Boise Airport at 5 a.m. It's only happened 22 times since the National Weather Service started tracking this specific statistic in 1939. They only give Boise a 28% chance of it happening again.

Perhaps you're a little less scientific than they are. You don't care what time on Christmas Day the snow comes. If there are flakes flying and sticking sometime on December 25, you consider that a "White Christmas." Fair enough, but the probability of that happening is even worse. Measurable snowfall has only fallen on Christmas Day 15 times since 1939. That means there's about a 19% chance of it happening this year.

Does that mean you should disappoint Bing Crosby and give up dreaming of a White Christmas? Hardly! Remember 2016? Snowpocalypse really began on December 23, with the most significant of that snowfall from that first storm happening on Christmas Eve. By Christmas Day? The snow depth was 9".

If you've got your heart set on a White Christmas, here's an interesting look back at what Boise's weather has been like on Christmas since 1878!