Will it snow on Christmas Day 2023? Long range forecast and odds

The weather service has issued snow and ice warnings for large parts of the country as Brits are told to prepare for "hazardous conditions".

In the warning, snow is predicted to fall in parts of North and Eastern Scotland as well as North East England. 

With "wintry showers" forecast for the coming weeks too, are we likely to see snow over the festive season this year?

As we count down the days until December 25, the Met Office has told Brits to expect cold conditions to continue with wintry showers expected mainly along the coasts in the North and East.

What are the odds for snow on Christmas Day?

The UK has a one-in-two chance of seeing snowflakes this Christmas, according to the latest betting odds.

Dr Richard Wild, the first person in the world to secure a PhD in snow trends, spoke to Betfred about chances of seeing the white stuff this year.

The man nicknamed 'Dr Snow' commented: “Since 1960 around half the years have seen at least five per cent of the recording network recording snowfall on Christmas Day. We can expect more than half of Christmas Days to have snow.

“Long range forecasts are known to be inaccurate. Mostly they work on a three month average, so at the moment that looks at December to February.

“There are multiple forecasts available from organisations across the world, almost all of them are suggesting that December as a whole for the UK looks like experiencing temperatures slightly warmer than average.

“But it doesn’t mean there won’t be periods in December when it won’t be colder than normal. You may get some short sharp days where it is expected to be cold..

“The atmosphere is so complex when it comes to long-term forecasts, there are so many climate drivers that can influence our weather even if they are somewhere a long way away in other parts of the planet.”

What does the Met Office say about snow this Christmas?

To get a full picture of whether we're likely to see snow this year, we also took a look at the Met Office's current long-range forecast. 

It doesn't give us a lot of detail - as the Met Office explains - " Looking at forecasts beyond five days into the future the chaotic nature of the atmosphere starts to come into play - small events currently over the Atlantic can have potentially significant impacts on our weather in the UK in several days' time."

However, the long range forecast is updated on a daily basis and the forecaster says that is can provide "an indication of how the weather might change, or be different from normal, (i.e. warmer, colder, wetter, drier) across the whole UK".

The weather service added: "Met Office meteorologists consider output from a range of weather models when writing these forecasts.

"These models include those from the Met Office as well as models from other global forecasting centres such as the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts ( ECMWF).

Over the coming weeks - from Saturday December 2 to Monday, December 11, the Met Office tells Brits to expect "cold across the UK on Saturday with a mixture of sunny spells and some wintry showers, these most frequent across coasts in the north and east".

It added: "Through Sunday and Monday, further wintry showers are likely across some northern areas. Further south, some rain and perhaps hill snow may spread across from the west for a time.

See our chances of a White Christmas with the latest odds and Met Office long range forecast (Canva)

"Over the remainder of this forecast period, it will likely remain rather cold at first with further wintry showers in places, especially in the east.

"Some parts of the south and west may become mainly fine and dry for a time. Later in the week there is an increasing chance that milder, more changeable weather will begin to spread in from the west.

Moving closer to Christmas and Boxing Day, the Met Office predicts that "conditions are most likely to be changeable through this period".

It expects that between Tuesday, December 12 and Tuesday, December 26, the weather will be wetter and windier than average conditions especially in the west and northwest.

It continued: "Temperatures are most likely to be near or above average overall, although this doesn't rule out some spells of cold weather and associated wintry hazards".