Could CA Have A White Christmas? Here’s What The Old Farmer’s Almanac Predicts

CALIFORNIA — There's nothing like seeing snow on the pine trees, and sometimes the palm trees in California. Songs, poems, children’s stories and holiday movies relive the joy of a white Christmas, but how likely is it that some Californians will wake up to a snow-covered landscape on Christmas morning?

Alas, the Pacific Southwest will not have a white Christmas in 2025, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac prediction.

“While we all know that nature can be unpredictable, the odds are that the snow will fall mainly in the Central region of the U.S.” the almanac’s website reads. “According to The 2026 Old Farmer’s Almanac, most of the United States will be seeing a milder, gentler winter than average.”

The Old Farmer’s Almanac said in a newly released forecast that a White Christmas is unlikely in California. Though the mountainous regions as a whole are expected to be blanketed in snow from recent storms, Christmas will likely be clear and dry, the almanac says.

Even still, snowfall on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and even New Year’s Eve in the Golden State are not unprecedented, history shows.

With the state’s wide elevation range, mountain regions like the Sierra Nevada and San Gabriel Mountains often see snow during the holiday season. Added to that, there is a record of snowstorms that remain in local lore from San Francisco to San Diego, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and local reports.

In 1882, San Francisco had its “Great Snowstorm” on New Year’s Eve, when that city saw 3.5 inches of the white stuff, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. That snowstorm drifted as far south as Los Angeles and San Diego, according to reports.

Further south, Los Angeles, Riverside and San Diego counties all saw snowfall in January of 1949, when the Southland was transformed into a winter wonderland.

Other snowfall events were recorded in December of 1967, with some areas reaching several inches, according to the Times of San Diego.

Aside from the mountains, snowfall was recorded in Southern California on New Year’s Eve in 2014, when even Southwest Riverside County saw over an inch of snow, enough to sled on.

Dreams of a white Christmas remain just wishful thinking in some parts of the country, including the Deep South, the Southeast, Hawaii, and the Desert Southwest.

Still, stranger things have happened. Even Tucson, Arizona, woke to a white Christmas in 1987. Other snowfall events, while rare, do occur in the Desert Southwest, as this one below, in Feb. of 2019.

For now, here’s a look at what could be in store for the rest of the country in 2025, as the Almanac predicts:

• Northeast: A White Christmas.
• Atlantic Corridor: Not a White Christmas
• Appalachians: Chance of a White Christmas
• Southeast: Not a White Christmas
• Florida: Not a White Christmas
• Lower Lakes: A White Christmas
• Ohio Valley: Chance of a White Christmas in the east; not a White Christmas in the west
• Deep South: Not a White Christmas
• Upper Midwest: Chance of a White Christmas
• Heartland: Not a White Christmas
• Texas–Oklahoma: Not a White Christmas
• High Plains: Chance of a White Christmas
• Intermountain: Chance of a White Christmas in the east; not a White Christmas in the west
• Desert Southwest: Not a White Christmas
• Pacific Northwest: Not a White Christmas
• Alaska: A White Christmas.
• Hawaii: Not a White Christmas

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