I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas

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The discussion centers around the impact of the "Pineapple Express" weather system, which is expected to bring snow to the eastern United States, particularly affecting areas like western North Carolina and upstate South Carolina. Predictions vary on snowfall amounts and the extent of the snow's reach. Historical context is provided, noting that Greenville, SC has only experienced three white Christmases since the late 1800s, with the last significant one occurring in 1962. Participants express a mix of nostalgia for traditional snowy Christmases and envy for warmer climates, sharing personal experiences of past winters and holiday traditions. Some mention current weather conditions, including significant snowfall in certain areas, while others reflect on the changing nature of winter weather over the decades. The conversation highlights a blend of excitement for potential snow and the challenges it brings, such as travel disruptions and power outages.
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It looks like the "Pineapple Express" that has been clobbering California with a torrent of rain will bring snow to the eastern USA in time for Christmas. One of the TV stations in Greenville SC is predicting snow for the western North Carolina mountains, and probably also for upstate South Carolina. The main question is how much, and how far south it will extend.

My town is near the southern edge of the "snow belt" that they showed in the forecast tonight, so we may just get some snowflakes and sleet, or we may actually get some accumulation.

There have apparently been only three "white Christmases" (with accumulated snow on the ground) in Greenville since the late 1800s, most recently in 1962 or thereabouts.
 
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Take my pineapples... please!

Hope you guys get a snowman or two out of this. :)
 
Math Is Hard said:
Take my pineapples... please!

Just so long as it's not actually raining pineapples! :eek:
 
jtbell said:
There have apparently been only three "white Christmases" (with accumulated snow on the ground) in Greenville since the late 1800s, most recently in 1962 or thereabouts.
Brag, brag, brag! :wink:

Seriously, I envy you. A green Christmas would be great over here in Ontario, Canada. Why I had to be born here... Ugh. I despise winter. I do love Canada and it's people, but the winter thing is the worst.

We have two seasons: Winter and July.

Best Christmas I ever had was in St. Lucia. I did not miss the snow at all.

When I see astronomers working in Hawaii, I'm not ashamed to admit I feel a lot of envy and just a bit of hate right then... :biggrin:
 
A green Christmas? I would not be able to handle it. I love the traditional Christmas parties we have in our family. An open fire, cashews, eggnog, dinner, movies, games, etc...! Although I am no longer of the Christian faith, I love the tradition regardless because of the family get together. I need that after being away for so long sometimes. It will be a white Christmas where I live this year, last year was horrible, but this year we have a lot of snow and it is puffy and white. I just might go skiing and snowboarding on New Years as well.
 
Green (actually grey) Christmasses are normal in The Netherlands. But this year forecast for a white christmas talks about a near certainty. This snow is not going to melt in a day. The last official white Christmasses we had were in 1964, 1981 and 2009 source, the last paragraph translates roughly like this:

In earlier centuries, sometimes there have been four white christmasses in a row but it could also happen that the next one would stay away for another twenty years.
 
Our white Christmas are frantically melting away. Hopefully there is enough snow so that it won't completely disappear before Friday evening (Christmas in Poland start on Dec 24th).
 
I remember lots of White Christmases in the 70's then they disappeared. Now in the past two years they seem to be coming back. We have about a foot of snow at the moment, so hopefully it will still be here Christmas Day. I promised my youngest son snow for Christmas (gulp!), having given him snow as a birthday present in November. He gave me a Christmas pressy list a few years back and one of the things he put on the list was "Microsoft". Didn't quite have the money for that one.
 
cobalt124 said:
I remember lots of White Christmases in the 70's then they disappeared.

That fits with my memories of growing up in northeast Ohio and going to grad school in Michigan. I remember white Christmases when I was a kid, up until maybe the mid-1960s. Then they became unusual, and we didn't usually have substantial snowfall until mid-January.

Where I live now, we get a substantial snowfall maybe once every two or three years. In 2000 we had a real doozy which completely shut down the city for two or three days.

[URL]http://web.presby.edu/~jtbell/blizzard/Calvert.jpg[/URL]

What you can't see in this picture is the thick layer of ice that had accumulated on the tree branches before the ice-drizzle turned into snow. As I walked down the street I could hear tree branches cracking every few minutes, and occasionally saw one fall.
 
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  • #10
No white Christmas for us, but we now have a white day after Christmas. A white Boxing day, if we celebrated that. Looks like a couple of inches.
 

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  • #11
We're waiting for 7 to 14 inches overnight and through tomorrow morning.
 
  • #14
Astronuc said:
We're waiting for 7 to 14 inches overnight and through tomorrow morning.
Yep! We're under the gun for a blizzard, too. I replaced a shear-pin in my snow-blower and got it running yesterday. Ready, but not looking forward to it.
 
  • #15
We have nothing. :frown:
 
  • #16
Evo said:
We have nothing. :frown:
You can have mine. I'll save you some. :biggrin:
 
  • #17
As usual I spent Christmas at my Mom's, in Connecticut. My wife and I were going to drive home today, but last night we heard the updated forecast and decided -- at 9 pm -- to pack up and make the 4-hour drive right then. Finally got home at 1:30 am.

banana.gif
IBTL! http://www.websmileys.com/sm/happy/783.gif
 
  • #18
Redbelly98 said:
As usual I spent Christmas at my Mom's, in Connecticut. My wife and I were going to drive home today, but last night we heard the updated forecast and decided -- at 9 pm -- to pack up and make the 4-hour drive right then. Finally got home at 1:30 am.
Discretion beats valor every time, when the weather is nasty.
 
  • #19
Rather impressive snowfall. We had about 2 feet in 12 hours between 5 pm yesterday and 5 am this morning. Various highways were closed during the night, and our road wasn't plowed until early this morning. I shoveled last night because the drifts were getting high and I needed to be able to get the car out of the driveway this morning.

There are scattered power outages around us.

We hear that Stamford, CT got 3 feet of snow.

Pieces of a tree and needles from various fir trees litter the backyard.

A beautiful red-tailed hawk is stalking in our backyard. Probably looking for pigeons or doves since the squirrels are all in their nests.

BBC reports on the storm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12081749

East Coast storm strands travelers, vexes drivers
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101227/ap_on_bi_ge/us_winter_weather
 
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  • #20
Evo said:
We have nothing. :frown:


I don't think I've ever had snow in my life, barring some kind of half-assed excuse for sleet ;)
 
  • #22
We have White Christmas every year here in Norway.

I would like to keep it that way, but I'm happy to give away our minus degrees.
 
  • #23
arildno said:
We have White Christmas every year here in Norway.

I would like to keep it that way, but I'm happy to give away our minus degrees.

If you convert to our goofy English system, you can give up your minus degrees and *still* have a white Christmas!
 
  • #24
lisab said:
If you convert to our goofy English system, you can give up your minus degrees and *still* have a white Christmas!
I want crispy, white snowflakes, not grey slush!

So, no, I don't want stupidenglishexcuseforawinter.
 
  • #25
I can see mountains from my house in Los Angeles and usually they just looked dusted with snow. This morning some of them looked pure white!
 
  • #26
lisab said:
If you convert to our goofy English system, you can give up your minus degrees and *still* have a white Christmas!
Why stop there? Convert to Kelvin and they're *all* positive!

Goodness, it's actually 274K out there today! Should be hitting 279K tomorrow on my Birthday. Nice...
 

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