Time Magazine: Climate Change will Bring More AND Less Christmas Snow?

Essay by Eric Worrall

Time Magazine placing an each way bet?

DEC 13, 2025 5:06 AM AET
What Climate Change Means for White Christmases

by Simmone Shah
REPORTER

If you’ve been dreaming of a white Christmas, be warned that it might not become a reality. 

Many people have memories of watching the snow fall on Christmas Day—but data shows that, across the country, a white Christmas occurs less frequently than you might think.

While a few degrees might not seem like much, it could mean the difference between snow and rain. “With warmer temperatures being recorded across the nation, the odds of a white Christmas are going down,” says Pete Globe, assistant state climatologist at the Colorado Climate Center. “So there is at least some truth to the anecdote that we’re seeing less white Christmases across a lot of the country.” 

That’s due to a mix of climate change and climate variability, the natural fluctuations in climate patterns in a given region. The northeast, upper Midwest and New York and New Jersey are some of the areas where this trend is strongest, says Globe. Climate change is also causing shorter, warmer winters. But that doesn’t mean that a white Christmas will become a thing of the past. Some areas that often see snow might see more intense storms due to climate change, as a warmer atmosphere is able to hold more moisture. 

Read more: https://time.com/7340507/climate-change-snow-white-christmas/

Soo let’s see if I got this right. You probably won’t see snow this Christmas, because of global warming. But if you do see snow, that will be because of global warming.

Falsify that prediction Mr Popper.

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Randle Dewees
December 15, 2025 10:11 am

Up at our cabin at 6400′ in the South Sierra it’s likely we will not have snow this Christmas season from the upcoming pacific storm system. Not new snow at least, there is still some left on the ground from the heavy storms a month ago.

drednicolson
December 15, 2025 10:17 am

They’ve got folk singers writing about the weather these days.

It rained all night, the day I left
The weather, it was dry
The sun so hot, I froze to death
Suzanna, don’t you cry!

Reply to  drednicolson
December 15, 2025 11:49 am

Who is “Simmone Shah”??..

Seems to be a low-end activist journal with absolutely zero scientific education, who writes mantra propaganda nonsense articles about things she knows absolutely nothing about.

Marty
Reply to  drednicolson
December 15, 2025 2:42 pm

Twas a summer’s day in winter
The snow was raining fast
The barefoot boy with shoes on
Stood sitting in the grass.
(I think that old sing was from vaudeville.)

Reply to  drednicolson
December 15, 2025 9:39 pm

The coldest winter I ever experienced was a summer in San Francisco.

John Hultquist
December 15, 2025 10:23 am

Good timing. Alaska, Canada, and about 1/3 of the Lower States have snow cover. More expected.

Reply to  John Hultquist
December 15, 2025 1:06 pm
Reply to  John Hultquist
December 15, 2025 3:10 pm

What does seem to be happening , according to Rutgers snow data for NH, is that snow is falling earlier in the “fall” and disappearing earlier in the “spring”..

Winter snow extent seems to be increasing.

Rutgers University Climate Lab :: Global Snow Lab

I think I heard that the snow in Australia was rather good this last winter… but I don’t really follow that.

Sparta Nova 4
December 15, 2025 10:25 am

We had a December snow for the first time since 2017, according to the radio weather report.

December 15, 2025 10:29 am

I guess the Time magazine authors have forgotten about—perhaps were never aware of—the following:

“In 2000, Dr. David Viner of University of East Anglia’s disgraced Climatic Research Unit advised, ‘Within a few years winter snowfall will become a very rare and exciting event.’ . . . ‘Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.’ Britain’s Meteorological Office said this December was ‘almost certain’ to become the coldest since records began in 1910. Paul Michaelwaite, forecaster for NetWeather.tv, said, ‘It is looking like this winter could be in the top 20 cold winters in the last 100 years’.”
https://news.wwu.edu/inthemedia/facts-dont-always-support-hype-about-some-issues (published in 2025; my bold emphasis added)

Time magazine . . . headed toward the dustbin of history, if not already there.

Reply to  ToldYouSo
December 15, 2025 12:33 pm

And Viner was right (he was talking about southern England), he also pointed out that occasional cold winters would occur and people would be unable to deal with them because they had adapted to the warmer winters.

SxyxS
Reply to  Phil.
December 15, 2025 12:54 pm

You mean that cold snowy England when they used to built the pipes of their houses outside until a few decades ago?
The England that was turned into a vineyard by the romans?
The same England whose coastline looks the same as 80 years ago.

You mean the perfect co2 climate from a hundred years when they almost cancelled the winter Olympics in Lake Placid because no snow and 10C /50F temperatures in January?

Reply to  SxyxS
December 15, 2025 7:33 pm

The England that was turned into a vineyard by the romans?”

And now has even more vineyards.

“The same England whose coastline looks the same as 80 years ago.”

Tell that to the residents of Skipsea, East Yorkshire where the coastline has receded about half a mile in the last two decades:

https://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/1/590x/secondary/Skipsea-4829472.avif?r=1688209140058

Boff Doff
Reply to  Phil.
December 16, 2025 1:30 am

Or you could tell it to the residents of Rye whose once major port is now landlocked and two miles from the sea. Easy to talk bollox innit.

SxyxS
Reply to  Phil.
December 16, 2025 2:06 am

So you resort to a cherrypicked event, but ignore all those events that contradict yours(all usually result of tidal dynamics,sinking/ rising landmass).

And then you really try to use the “we have more vinyards” – now, argument.
You mean now with all the big machines, pesticides,high tech etc a 50 fold increase in population a 6* increase in vinyards in a thousand years is an argument?
Muahahaha.

Well, why don’t you tell us about the massive decrease of vinyards during the 19 th century?So much that the last coommercial Uk vinyards closed in the 1920.
But I’m not that cheap to make this into a global cooling argument.

Reply to  SxyxS
December 16, 2025 8:17 am

So you resort to a cherrypicked event, but ignore all those events that contradict yours(all usually result of tidal dynamics,sinking/ rising landmass).”

You posted: “The same England whose coastline looks the same as 80 years ago.”

I didn’t ignore anything I pointed out one example that show that statement to be wrong although there are many others.

Well, why don’t you tell us about the massive decrease of vinyards during the 19 th century?So much that the last coommercial Uk vinyards closed in the 1920.”

The closure was due to the world war and the requirement to convert the vineyards to food production, following WWII there was a move to return to wine production resulting in the substantial increase in English and Welsh vineyards. The decrease in production in the 19th century was due to the phylloxera epidemic brought from America

Reply to  Phil.
December 16, 2025 2:49 am

Do you mean the several castles that used to have sea access ports.. and are now high and dry away from the sea?

Did you know that the nearest tide gauges to Skipsea have really scary sea level rise of 1.9mm/year and 2.3mm/year

Reply to  bnice2000
December 16, 2025 8:27 am

I was replying to the statement: “The same England whose coastline looks the same as 80 years ago.”

It’s not about the tide gauges, it’s about the change in the coastline which has happened in numerous places, I gave one example.

Reply to  Phil.
December 16, 2025 9:05 am

But not due to ‘climate change’

Reply to  Leo Smith
December 16, 2025 10:44 am

I didn’t say it was, I was addressing the comment made about the coastline, no reference was made to climate.

Reply to  Phil.
December 16, 2025 9:04 am

Its is extremely specious to quote the disappearance of the East coast of England with climate change. Its been happening for over a thousand years.
That you use that as an example discredits everything else you say.

“In the Anglo-Saxon period, Dunwich was the capital of the Kingdom of the East Angles, but the harbour and most of the town have since disappeared due to coastal erosion. At its height it was an international port similar in size to 14th-century London. Its decline began in 1286 when a storm surge hit the East Anglian coast, followed by two great storms in February and December of 1287, until it eventually shrank to the village it is today.”

I’ve included a tree that fell into the sea along with its cliff about 20 years ago.
The road ends in a sheer drop at one point.

TreeInTheSea
Reply to  Leo Smith
December 18, 2025 11:54 am

Its is extremely specious to quote the disappearance of the East coast of England with climate change. Its been happening for over a thousand years.
That you use that as an example discredits everything else you say.”

Nowhere did I refer to climate change in reference to the change in the English coastline over the last 80 years.

You posted: “Its been happening for over a thousand years.”

Well if you want to go back over a thousand years then clearly we are talking about a ‘climate event’.

The East coast of England was created by a climate event about 10,000 years ago and has continued to change ever since.

comment image

Reply to  Phil.
December 15, 2025 1:05 pm

Occasional cold winters have always occurred. As have warmer winters.

Pristine data shows the UK region is no warmer now than in the 1930s,40s.

Viner’s anti-science predictions were the equivalent of a coffee spray on a screen after a bad joke…..

ie random garbage…..

… but climate hysterics still “believe” 😉

Reply to  Phil.
December 15, 2025 1:37 pm

I grew up in the South of England, and even then snow was a rare and exciting event.

English kids today have all experienced snow.

Reply to  Graemethecat
December 15, 2025 8:08 pm

Do you remember 1963, that was fairly spectacular!

Here’s a plot of snow lying days in London:
comment image

Reply to  bnice2000
December 16, 2025 7:38 am
Reply to  Phil.
December 16, 2025 11:05 am

Thanks for confirming the “New Ice Age” scare around the 1960-late 1970s.

You are doing well 🙂

Leon de Boer
Reply to  Phil.
December 15, 2025 4:49 pm

Yeah probably need facts to back up your lovely climate claim … all we get at the moment is I am a believer trust me.

Gregory Woods
Reply to  ToldYouSo
December 15, 2025 12:35 pm

Time wound up in my garbage pail long ago.

Reply to  Gregory Woods
December 15, 2025 2:15 pm

Greg:
Ditto “Scientific” American, soon after they went after Bjorn Lomborg for his “Skeptical Environmentalist” book.

Reply to  B Zipperer
December 15, 2025 9:49 pm

From Google AI

Yes, Scientific American is a partner and a signatory on the Covering Climate Now initiative. It was one of the original news outlets that signed the “Statement on the Climate Emergency” in 2019. 
Scientific American is a core partner in the collaboration, which is a non-profit consortium of more than 600 news outlets globally working to improve climate change coverage. 

As you know, Covering Climate Now is a propaganda mill for “The Climate Crisis”

Reply to  Gregory Woods
December 15, 2025 9:43 pm

Time helps me compensate for local temperature variations by becoming kindling in my wood stove.

Sparta Nova 4
December 15, 2025 10:29 am

Natural fluctuations in climate patterns?

Obviously climate is now synonymous with weather.

“a mix of climate change and climate variability”

Climate change is in reality weather variability.

Control the language. Control the ideas.

David Wojick
Reply to  Sparta Nova 4
December 15, 2025 10:34 am

Exactly and bad weather is now a “climate event.”

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  David Wojick
December 16, 2025 6:58 am

Exactly.

David Wojick
December 15, 2025 10:31 am

It is actually two testable forecasts. But according to the Climate Reference Network chart to the right on this page the U.S. has not been warming so that part is already falsified!

Reply to  David Wojick
December 15, 2025 11:21 am

It hasn’t warmed since early 2024, almost two years now.

comment image

David Wojick
Reply to  Tom Abbott
December 15, 2025 11:33 am

That is global UAH not US CRN.

Reply to  Tom Abbott
December 15, 2025 9:45 pm

so… Historical global climate is well represented by the 91 – 2000 Tmean?

Reply to  David Wojick
December 15, 2025 11:44 am

USCRN shows zero warming apart from a minor step at the 2016 El Nino..

UAH USA48 trend-matches it very well but with a somewhat smaller range.

USCRNUAH.USA48
Reply to  bnice2000
December 15, 2025 1:58 pm

Yes. Zero climate change over the last 20 years. Is it any wonder the Gorebal Warning Hoax is dead? It turns out people aren’t that stupid.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  OR For
December 16, 2025 7:01 am

Many people aren’t that stupid. More and more are lifting their eyes and looking at the world, at reality. Not enough yet. Still there is hope humanity can shed this neurosis that has been brainwashed for generations.

December 15, 2025 10:33 am

Reminds me of when the scare first started. It was AGW (or CAGW) back then.
But nature didn’t cooperate so they started to call it “Climate Change”. That covers anything that happens and they can still blame it on Man.

SxyxS
Reply to  Gunga Din
December 15, 2025 12:55 pm

At twice the rate than everywhere else on the planet.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  SxyxS
December 16, 2025 7:02 am

It’s worse than they expected even though what they expected was per consensus.

ScienceABC123
December 15, 2025 10:47 am

Ah, climate change. The only thing claimed as causing more and less of everything.

Beta Blocker
Reply to  ScienceABC123
December 15, 2025 11:31 am

This might be part of the phenomena where every place on earth is warming twice as fast as every other place on earth — more or less, anyway.

Reply to  Beta Blocker
December 15, 2025 11:37 am

OR
“This might be part of the phenomena where every place on earth is changing twice as fast as every other place on earth — more and less, anyway.”?

Ed Zuiderwijk
December 15, 2025 11:41 am

I understood that every year there are people in Sydney disappointed about the White Christmas not appearing, yet again.

On a lighter note, a barbie at midnight on Christmas Eve on a beach in northern Chile is not to be snubbed at. There was whiteness, a lot of it, but that were the tops of the waves on the Pacific.

Reply to  Ed Zuiderwijk
December 16, 2025 9:10 am

I remember Johannesburg Christmases., up to 50°C and we still ate roast turkey, ham, roast potatoes…and fell into the pool afterwards.
Of course it was a White Christmas. It was Apartheid…

December 15, 2025 12:12 pm

Some areas that often see snow might see more intense storms due to climate change, as a warmer atmosphere is able to hold more moisture. 

This is absolutely correct and why glaciation is on its way. Greenland is already gaining in altitude. And Greenland plateau will never see winter rain – always winter snow.

Glaciers grow at altitude and then flow down and out toward the ocean. Greenland’s most productive glacier is already advancing in response to the increased elevation of ice feeding it..

Reply to  RickWill
December 15, 2025 10:09 pm

From Google’s AI; I asked this loaded question:

Tell me about water flowing into moulins on Greenland
lubricating the flow of glaciers where they flow on bedrock.

              Water flowing into moulins on the Greenland ice sheet acts
              as a crucial lubricant at the glacier’s base, significantly
              influencing the speed at which the ice slides over the
              bedrock and moves towards the sea.

Google’s answer is one of many lies that are taken as
fact by way too many people that should know better.

Google’s AI doesn’t recognize a loaded question when it sees one.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  RickWill
December 16, 2025 7:05 am

Warmer air CAN hold more moisture, but that does not mean at any given time at any given locale it actually does. Temperature is not a “control knob” for atmospheric water content.

kwinterkorn
December 15, 2025 12:13 pm

Well, of course! It will also be either warmer or colder….or sometimes just as always. All these things will signal catastrophic climate change! Science says so, doncha know?

taxed
December 15, 2025 12:19 pm

They may claim White Christmases are on the decline.

But here in North Lincolnshire England climate change has been causing a increase in ‘White Novembers’ as since 1977 there has been a increasing trend in snow falling before December 1st.
Because since recording from 1977 it took the first 23 winter season’s before l recorded 10 pre December 1st snowfalls. While that same number of pre December 1st snowfalls has been reached over the last 16 seasons.
Already in the 2020’s it has snowed the same number of times in November, then it did during the whole of the 1980’s.

Reply to  taxed
December 16, 2025 9:14 am

Yes. I saw a sprinkling down here in Suffolk, Unheard of before December. We might get SSW and a ‘beast from the east’ in January, or we might not.

The climate is definitely changing – and then changing back! I think it’s called ‘weather’…

taxed
Reply to  Leo Smith
December 16, 2025 10:36 am

Yep the first snow data l have recorded here in the Scunthorpe area of North Lincolnshire is certainly been showing a increased chance of seeing snow before December 1st since 1977.
Below l have broken the record down into three 16 winter seasons.
Starting with the first 16 then the next 16 and then the last 16 and shown how many times pre December 1st first snow fell in each one.

1977/78 to 1992/93 6 times

1993/94 to 2008/09 9 times

2010/11 to 2025/26 10 times

On the 2009/10 season l have missed out, the first snow fell on December 17th.

Bob
December 15, 2025 1:01 pm

Heads I win tails you lose.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Bob
December 16, 2025 7:06 am

Did you get a consensus on that experiment? Were the result published in a peer reviewed journal?

/sarc as if it’s needed.

ResourceGuy
December 15, 2025 1:10 pm

Next up is to check your county and street for climate con variability predictions. By subscription of course

ResourceGuy
December 15, 2025 1:13 pm

It’s the climate liturgical calendar again.

Dave O.
December 15, 2025 1:27 pm

No matter the climate future, it’s always going to be bad and we need to spend trillions to fix it.

ntesdorf
December 15, 2025 1:51 pm

Climate Change causes all the things that you can see and also all of the things that you don’t see, in addition.

Reply to  ntesdorf
December 15, 2025 10:12 pm

There are known knowns. 
These are things we know that we know. 
There are known unknowns. 
That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. 
But there are also unknown unknowns. 
There are things we don’t know we don’t know. 
                                                                    Donald Rumsfeld

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Steve Case
December 16, 2025 7:08 am

Of course is the voice of authority tells you what to believe, all of that wisdom is forgotten.

Edward Katz
December 15, 2025 2:22 pm

Time is demonstrating that it’s much like the rest of the mainstream media. It’s been proven wrong about an oncoming ice age in the 1960s and ’70s, so now it’s changed its game plan to attribute any weather/climate anomaly to man-made activities that involve fossil fuel use. This has become the norm with the climate alarmists; i.e., they really don’t know with consistency one way or the other so they tar everything with the same brush. And for them the solution is simple: just drastically cut fossil fuel usage and adopt more renewables and simpler lifestyles and all will be right with the world. Except most people tuned them out long ago. Hence the rejection or limited embracing of carbon pricing, heat pumps, EVs, reduced air travel, vegan diets, and all the other planet-saving con-jobs so beloved by the enviro-scammers.

Ex-KaliforniaKook
Reply to  Edward Katz
December 16, 2025 11:31 am

The exciting thing for Time is that they can just rerun articles from the ’40s and ’70s. The English is proper, no editing required, and they’ve already paid the few writers still living. Pure profit!

Michael Flynn
December 15, 2025 5:19 pm

That’s due to a mix of climate change and climate variability,

Lost me there – here’s one definition of variability –

lack of consistency or fixed pattern; liability to vary or change.

Maybe the so-called journalist is as ignorant about words as physics. Probably gullible as well. Maybe even stupid?

Reply to  Michael Flynn
December 15, 2025 10:15 pm

Maybe?

December 15, 2025 10:23 pm

There’s this from a little over a decade ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eDTzV6a9F4

But I believe the odds are that we can expect,
as a result of global warming, to see more of
this pattern of extreme cold in the mid-latitudes
and some extreme warm in the far north.
                                             Dr. John Holdren

SwedeTex
Reply to  Steve Case
December 16, 2025 1:48 pm

So, on average no change;-). A man with his head in the oven and his feet in a freezer on average is quite comfortable.

TBeholder
Reply to  Steve Case
December 17, 2025 3:09 am

John Holdren used to be a cold-monger before he turned around and became a warm-monger, offering some of the same “solutions” in different packages. After all, why let a good fairy tale go to waste?

December 16, 2025 8:55 am

Lol. No use quoting Karl Popper at the Climatards.
If it is different, it ‘proves climate change’ . If its the same as usual, it’s ‘just weather’

TBeholder
December 17, 2025 3:04 am