The Snowy Day: White Christmas in Vancouver an outside possibility
Credit to Author: Harrison Mooney| Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2019 00:51:31 +0000
Vancouverites know better than to expect snow on Christmas Day.
It rarely snows around these parts, and most of the time, that’s just fine — we’ve grown so accustomed to rain and only rain this time of year that few among us know how to drive in the presence of its stickier, slipperier cousin. The snow may look lovely as it falls. But it’s decidedly less lovely at street level, where even a few flurries can turn Metro’s roads into a Mad Max holiday special.
If the locals had their way, the snow would come once a year, like Christmas itself. The dream is a white Christmas, even if the response from the heavens is typically to keep dreaming.
This year could be different, however. It’s hardly a lock, but with only five days to go in our advent calendars, Environment Canada has yet to dismiss the dream of a white Christmas. The latest forecast for Wednesday, Dec. 25 calls for cloudy skies with a 60 per cent chance of flurries or rain showers. Rain is likeliest, as the temperature could rise as high as five degrees, but in the evening, as the temperature falls, it’s possible we see some snow falling with it.
The Weather Network, meanwhile, is predicting a more typical mix of sun and clouds, but even they haven’t ruled out as much as a centimetre of snow.
That’s not much, and it wouldn’t be wise to expect even that little — there’s likely no need to dig your crazy carpets out of storage. But there remains an outside chance, and even a thoroughly polite dusting would be among the whitest Christmases Vancouver has seen this young century. There have been just two and a half White Christmases since the year 2000, and frankly, not one of them would even qualify as such in a region with higher expectations.
All that in mind, as another decade winds to a close, let’s take a look at what our dreams of a white Christmas have wrought these past 20 years, using publicly available Environment and Climate Change data.
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2000 — Grey Christmas. Vancouver’s first Christmas of the 21st century was a typical one, as revellers enjoyed the usual dreary mix of rain, fog, and cloud cover.
2001 — Green Christmas. Christmas 2001 was a crisp, clear day with no rain, no snow, and almost no clouds at all. It was pretty much the ideal holiday, unless somebody gave you a snow blower for Christmas and you had to wait to try it out. Where does one go to let snow blowers blow when the heavens say no and the snow doesn’t show? Whistler, probably.
2002 — Grey Christmas. It rained all day, but Vancouverites know better than to let anything rain on their parade, especially rain itself. Plus, if you think about it, rain is just hot snow.
2003 — Grey Christmas. Mostly cloudy, with temperatures between five to six degrees. You’re probably getting the idea by now. One wonders why Vancouverites don’t start rooting against a White Christmas so their Christmas wishes come true a little more often.
2004 — Grey Christmas. Mostly rain, but with a twist this time: the clouds came down to celebrate the day with us, covering the region in a thick fog. On the bright side, heavy fog at least provides the illusion of a white Christmas. Either that or it completely obscures what’s going on outside, making it easier to lie to yourself about the absence of snow. Absence? Why, I mean abundance.
2005 — Grey Christmas. The usual mix of rain and cloud, which has gifted small pockets of snow in the past, but that wasn’t happening in 2005: temperatures were in the double digits most of the day, meaning the closest anybody came to a White Christmas was when they applied sunscreen before going outside.
2006 — Grey Christmas. Another mostly cloudy and unseasonably warm Christmas, with temperatures hovering between six and eight degrees.
2007 — Grey Christmas? This one falls short on a technicality. There was snow, in theory, but not enough. According to Environment and Climate Change data, Vancouverites enjoyed a mix of rain, snow and fog for about three hours in the early evening, and if that wasn’t already borderline enough, the snow that fell around 3 p.m. is actually classified as “snow grains”. Heck, for all we know, it might have been bits of styrofoam in the air after all the gift exchanges and unboxings. Christmas 2007 is disqualified.
2008 — WHITE CHRISTMAS! Oh, it’s real snow you want? Well have at it, Vancouver. 2008 was the first truly White Christmas in Vancouver in a decade. Ironically, it was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it affair too, with trace amounts of snow falling around 6 a.m. and then not again for the rest of an otherwise cloudy day. But by then the whiteness of Christmas 2008 had already been well-established, as the region was already under mountains of snow by then — almost 90 centimetres fell at the YVR weather station in the infamously and uncharacteristically snowy December, and Vancouver wouldn’t be rid of the stuff until the spring. It’s not often that we get to complain about too much snow at Christmas, but 2008 was the major exception. By Christmas Day, most folks were wishing the snow would never return, and this time they got their wish: it would be eight long years before we saw another White Christmas.
Last minute shoppers wait for a bus in a Christmas eve snowstorm in Vancouver.
2009 — Grey Christmas. The temperature was right for a few flurries in the morning, but it was mostly clear until the afternoon. The clouds finally showed up well after the moment had passed, like a drunk uncle. Even worse, they hogged all the gravy, and gave all their nephews and nieces Tim Hortons gift cards.
2010 — Grey Christmas. Mostly cloudy, with intermittent rain throughout another warm Christmas Day. 1 p.m. saw a high of 9.4 degrees, meaning it was likelier to see the rain turn to steam than snow.
2011 — Grey Christmas. Mostly cloudy. It started raining around 10 a.m., with temperatures rising to 9.1. degrees by the late afternoon. That’s not how you make snow at all.
2012 — Grey Christmas. Most cloudy. Some rain in the afternoon but no snow — it was warmer than a seeker on the trail of a hider.
2013 — Grey Christmas. The fourth cloudy Christmas in a row. It rained briefly in the evening, but with temperatures hovering just below five degrees, it was always going to be rain.
2014 — Grey Christmas. Mostly clear in the morning, mostly cloudy into the evening. But no rain, and definitely no snow.
2015 — Green Christmas. The skies were mostly clear for Christmas 2015, and Vancouverites were treated to a fairly nice day. It wasn’t a white Christmas, sure, but after a run of six straight Christmases under a cover of cloud that made the whole region look like the world of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, the blue skies were a welcome change of pace.
2016 — Green Christmas. Another nice day. It was certainly cold enough for snow, with temperatures below freezing into the afternoon, but you don’t get snow from clear skies. The clouds rolled in around sunset, but they didn’t come bearing gifts, so why even bother?
2017 — WHITE CHRISTMAS! Not for long, mind you, but from about 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., enough snow fell in Metro Vancouver to almost cover the ground. Just look at the fun people were able to have playing on the snow-freckled grass! This is pretty much ideal Vancouver snow: enough to say that it snowed and take a few selfies for the ‘Gram, but not enough to complain that it snowed or that a bike lane that was cleared faster than an adjacent roadway.
December 25, 2017 — Holiday makers enjoying the snow in Stanley Park on Christmas Day in Vancouver, BC., December 25, 2017.
2018 — Grey Christmas. Another mostly cloudy Christmas Day. It rained briefly in the afternoon, but with temperatures hovering between four and five degrees, there was never any chance of the rain turning to snow.
As for this year, only time will tell. Remember that a few “snow grains” do not a white Christmas make. If you can’t hashtag it #winterwonderland, it doesn’t count. Happy sledding, or whatever you choose to do in the likely absence of snow-covered hills.
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