CONTACT:  Patricia Viets                    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
          (301) 457-5005                    12/21/95
          Neal Lott or Matt Sittel
          704-271-4995, ext. 182

WHO WILL HAVE A WHITE CHRISTMAS?

Will we have a white Christmas? It's an age-old question that is asked every year at this time. The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) has produced a new map of the continental United States that shows the percent probabilities for a snow depth of at least one inch on Christmas morning.

Generally, the greatest probabilities lie over the northern United States and in mountainous areas. In defining a "white Christmas" as having a snow depth of at least one inch, the chances are 60 percent or better over an area including much of the northern Rockies, the northern Great Plains, the Great Lakes area, and most of New England. The chances are less than 20 percent over most of the southern third of the country excluding the Rockies, along with the Pacific coast.

Higher mountain areas (for example, elevation of 8000 feet in an area averaging about 4000 feet) will tend to have higher probabilities for a white Christmas.

Major city locations for the period of 1961-1990 were used to compute the probabilities. This period was chosen to coincide with the standard period for computing climatological normals.

If you need more information, contact NCDC (phone: 704-271-4800; fax: 704-271-4876: Internet: orders@ncdc.noaa.gov. A complete, more detailed report, including images, will be available in color this week on our WWW homepage http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov or by contacting NCDC.

                                       
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Editors Note:  To download a computer file, do the following:

Ftp to 'ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov'
Login as 'ftp'
Use your e-mail address as password
Go to directory /pub/data/special (cd pub/data/special)
Get file 'christmas-snow.gif' (transfer in bin mode--enter 'bin'
before transferring)

This is a standard type ftp arrangement.  You can also go through
our web page http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov as follows:

Go to homepage and click on 'on line data access'
Click on 'data inventories...'
Click on 'go to parent directory'
Click on 'special'
Click on 'christmas-snow.gif'