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Charlottetown white Christmas chances melting away

With P.E.I. getting a major wintry blast on Friday a white Christmas seemed assured, but after a big melt Sunday glistening treetops on Dec. 25 are less certain.

White Christmas appears to hinge on Friday's weather

Kevin Yarr · CBC News ·
After rain and double digit temperatures Sunday, the snow cover is much more sparse. (Kevin Yarr/CBC)

With P.E.I. getting a major wintry blast on Friday Charlottetown's first white Christmas since 2013 seemed assured, but after a big melt Sunday glistening treetops on Dec. 25 are less certain.

On Friday, with the snow flying, a poll of P.E.I. weather watchers had four out of five betting on a white Christmas.

Then the rain came Sunday: 17 centimetres of snow on the ground became nine centimetres by Monday morning.

An official white Christmas, according to Environment Canada, requires two centimetres of snow.

Rain or snow Friday?

Looking ahead, the next couple of days don't look like they will change conditions much. The forecast is for the temperature to stay below freezing. There may be some flurries Wednesday.

Things get more interesting on Friday. As of Tuesday morning, the forecast for Friday calls for snow, but with a high of just 0 C. That precipitation is on the cusp of being rain. On Monday evening Environment Canada was forecasting rain.

While it has switched back to snow, rain could wash away hopes for a white Christmas.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kevin Yarr

Web journalist

Kevin Yarr is the early morning web journalist at CBC P.E.I. Kevin has a specialty in data journalism, and how statistics relate to the changing lives of Islanders. He has a BSc and a BA from Dalhousie University, and studied journalism at Holland College in Charlottetown. You can reach him at kevin.yarr@cbc.ca.

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