White Christmas In HV: Here Are Chances Dreams Will Come True

HUDSON VALLEY, NY — If you're dreaming of a white Christmas in the Hudson Valley, chances are you're going to be disappointed.

Forecasters have delved into historical records to figure out where snow is likely to fall on the holiday and, though it's certainly possible, the Hudson Valley is not expected to be a winter wonderland.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration built an interactive map to figure out which U.S. areas will have the most seasonal Christmas, based on climatological measurements taken over the last three decades.

Its data suggests there's a 40 percent chance that snow will fall on Christmas Day in Yorktown Heights, 26 percent in Dobbs Ferry and 31 percent in Poughkeepsie.

AccuWeather's meteorologists give the city a mixed chance at seeing some flakes, but they still say it's less than 25 percent in the lower Hudson Valley with a mild holiday being more likely this year. The mid-Hudson Valley has between a 25 percent and 50 percent chance.

“I do not see snow on the ground around the I-95 corridor, especially from New York City on south," said the agency's forecaster Paul Pastelok, adding that the air is going to be too mild to produce snow.

"Chances for a white Christmas are low," he said.

AccuWeather says snow this year looks set to fall in the west of the country, the plains and the Midwest.

The National Weather Service doesn't give its prediction until much closer to the big day.

The white Christmas ideal in the United States comes from American composer Irving Berlin's classic, "White Christmas," recorded by Bing Crosby and others. The composer wrote the song while staying at an inn in southern California in 1940 and imagining the winters from his childhood in New York.

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