90% chance of a white Christmas for Thunder Bay, Environment Canada says
Environment Canada has calculated the probability of a white Christmas for cities across the country — with just nine days left to go — and only a little bit of white on the ground at the moment — the chances look fairly good.
According to its web site, "Environment Canada has analyzed 59 years of weather records for 43 major centres across Canada, and calculated the probability of having a white snow-covered Christmas Day."
Based on that data, Thunder Bay has a 90 per cent chance of having snow on the ground on Dec. 25. In fact, the analysis shows that the majority of Christmas days in Thunder Bay in the last 60 years have seen snow.
Just the same, it's been an unusually mild winter in the Lakehead so far. The agency says there's usually an average of around 13 centimetres of snow on the ground by now.
It's a different story in Kenora, which has 100 per cent chance of snow for Christmas Day. But that's nothing new, as Kenora has always had snow for Christmas Day, over the past 60 years.
Will it be 'perfect'?
Environment Canada considers a "Perfect Christmas" to be two centimetres of snow on the ground the morning of Dec. 25 with snow in the air sometime during the day. The agency predicts Thunder Bay has a 38 per cent of getting those "perfect conditions."