HASTINGS — The mention of Christmas often invokes visions of snow cover and cold weather.
However, Christmas weather in south central Nebraska certainly doesn’t always ring true to this picture. Just in the last 30 years, Christmas high temperatures in Grand Island have ranged from 11 to 62 degrees.
This story features a wealth of Christmas Day weather and climate information focused specifically on Grand Island, where December weather records date back 128 years to 1895, official weather data recorded at Central Nebraska Regional Airport since 1938.
Temperatures: According to the entire period of record, the warmest Christmas on record was 62 degrees on three occasions 1999, 1962 and 1922. The coldest low temperature was minus 16 degrees in both 1983 and 1924.
Only 22-of-125 Christmas Days on record, 18 percent, have featured high temperatures of 50 degrees or warmer, but four of these have occurred in the last 12 years, including both 2020 and 2021. On the opposite end of the temperature spectrum, only 10-of-125 Christmases, eight percent, have featured sub-zero low temperatures, including just last year in 2022.
Christmas 1983 truly stood out on the bitterly cold side of things, with a high temperature of only seven degrees and a bone-chilling low of minus 16 degrees. Despite how cold Christmas 1983 was, that day actually broke an unprecedented streak of seven consecutive days of below zero high temperatures that lasted from Dec. 18-24, 1983!
Precipitation/Snowfall: As for liquid precipitation equivalent, which includes any melted snowfall, only 15-of-128 Christmases, 12 percent, have featured measurable precipitation.
In terms of active, memorable Christmas weather, there have been a few notable ones just in the past 14 years. We are now 14 years removed from the major Christmas blizzard of 2009. This memorable storm dumped 7.8 inches of wind-whipped snow on Grand Island during the calendar day, and 9.1 inches of storm-total snow between Dec. 24-26.
Seven years ago in 2016, Christmas featured extremely active weather, but it had nothing to do with snow, instead, an unusually mild and moist air mass fueled a line of strong thunderstorms during the afternoon hours.
Then just a few hours later during the evening, an unusually strong and long-lasting high wind event occurred, featuring at least two to three hours of sustained westerly winds frequently 30-50 mph and a peak gust of 75 mph at Central Nebraska Regional Airport.
These winds caused considerable, mainly minor damage not only within Grand Island but also across much of south-central Nebraska.
“White Christmas” Probability: A “White Christmas” is defined as having at least one inch of snow on the ground at the official early-AM observation time.
Most of south-central Nebraska and far north central Kansas carries between a 25-40 percent chance of having a white Christmas. Specifically in Grand Island, there have been 10 White Christmases in the past 30 years, or 33 percent of the time.
The last official White Christmas was just last year in 2022, albeit barely, as a “weak” inch of snow still lingered from a quick-hitting storm four days prior on Dec. 21.
2022 Christmas Recap: The biggest weather story on Christmas 2022 at Central Nebraska Regional Airport was a somewhat “wacky” day of temperatures, with a frigid start to the day.
The first sub-zero Christmas low since 1996, followed by a fairly rare, late-evening warming trend, with the daily high occurring shortly before midnight.
Early in the calendar day, the low temperature of minus four degrees occurred at 1:40 a.m. Thereafter, light southerly breezes kicked in, allowing temperatures to warm slightly to around seven degrees by sunrise.
As the day wore on, south-southwest winds became breezy, sustained speeds generally 10-20 mph with occasional higher gusts. Throughout the afternoon, temperatures gradually warmed, reaching 32 degrees around sunset.
However, instead of then dropping off during the evening, a shift to more westerly winds allowed temperatures to keep on climbing, eventually topping out at 41 degrees at 11:51 p.m., shortly before the arrival of a strong cold front.
Precipitation-wise, although the airport in Grand Island officially reported no precipitation on Christmas 2022, scattered pockets of light freezing rain pushed through parts of the Tri Cities area mainly between 2-4 p.m., with slick roads reported no farther away than Kearney.
Lastly, thanks to a “weak” inch of snow cover, lingering over from a minor snowfall on Dec. 21, Grand Island officially observed its first “White Christmas” in five years, since 2017.