Are you dreaming of a white Christmas? Even living as far south as Kentuckiana, it's not out of the question. But it is pretty rare. Our snowiest Christmas ever in Louisville was 1890, when 4.5" of new snow fell. In 1939 and 2004 there were five inches of snow on the ground on Christmas day - our greatest snow depth on the holiday. Interestingly enough, new snow did not fall on Christmas day in either of those years. Based on climatology, a White Christmas is not likely. The chance of snow on Christmas in Louisville is only about 5% to 10%. That means we have a 90% to 95% chance on average to not have a white Christmas.
Credit: NOAA
The gray shading in the image above shows places where the probability is less than 10 percent, while white shows probabilities greater than 90 percent. Zooming in to our area, Louisville and most of our central Kentucky counties have about a 9% chance of a white Christmas with southern Indiana closer to the 15% category. This means Louisville statistically has a white Christmas about once every 10 years. In order for it to be "officially'' a white Christmas there needs to be a least one inch of snow on the ground.
