Syracuse, N.Y. — Upstate New York is one of the most reliable places in the country to have a white Christmas, but this year will be dicey.<\/p>\n
The odds for some snow on the ground Christmas morning are best in Western New York and the Adirondacks, and a little better than 50-50 in Syracuse, according to Accuweather senior meteorologist Paul Pastelok.<\/p>\n
He gives the odds at greater than 80% in Western New York and the Adirondacks, and 60% in Syracuse.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat you have on the ground is fading a little bit, but I think you have enough that it should stick around to be over an inch by Christmas,\u201d Pastelok said. \u201cThat will classify as a white Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n
The National Weather Service\u2019s official definition of a white Christmas is at least one inch of snow on the ground on Christmas morning. It doesn\u2019t mean it will snow on Christmas; only that snow, regardless of when it fell, covers the grass.<\/p>\n
With that definition, Pastelok said, a white Christmas is almost a lock for the Adirondacks and North Country. Those areas have been pounded by snow over the past few weeks. In the Lewis County town of Highmarket, for example, there\u2019s still 21 inches on the ground, and some of that is almost certain to stick around for Christmas.<\/p>\n
Parts of Western New York have a good shot at a white Christmas, too. In the Chautauqua County town of Jamestown, the ground is covered with 10 inches of snow.<\/p>\n
Even though Syracuse is well ahead of its normal snowfall at this point in the season, there\u2019s just 5 inches sitting on the ground at Hancock International Airport, the city\u2019s official measuring station. <\/p>\n
With rain expected today and temperatures reaching the upper 30s for a few days over the next week, that snow in Syracuse might not last until Christmas morning.<\/p>\n
There are some snow showers forecast over the next few days, but no substantial snow between now and Christmas, Pastelok said. In fact, there\u2019s a good chance of freezing rain on Christmas night, which could make for slippery roads on the drive home from the family gathering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Syracuse, N.Y. — Upstate New York is one of the most reliable places in the country to have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75975,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7984,38142,20237,12260,304,9,24,55,54,12,1492,56,12262,38143,5384,10776,10777],"class_list":["post-75974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-aerial","tag-clinton-square","tag-cny","tag-drone","tag-editorial","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-news","tag-north-america","tag-ny","tag-post-standard","tag-skate","tag-syracuse","tag-syracuse-com","tag-trimble"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}