Dreaming of a White Christmas? You might be dreaming for a long time because they don’t actually happen too often in Southern Colorado – at least if you go by the official definition.

The National Weather Service Pueblo Office, our local office in S Colorado, defines a White Christmas by these requirements. More than .5″ of snow falling on Christmas Day and at least 1″ of snow on the ground. Both of these requirements need to be met in order to officially label Christmas Day as a White Christmas. This explains why the last one we had in Colorado Springs was in 1987! It’s not as simple as just having snow on the ground if you’re being technical.

Snow from a previous day can count toward the 1″ on the ground total but more than .5″ must actually fall on Christmas. So while most will say it is a White Christmas if snow is on the ground on Christmas Day regardless of when it fell, the NWS will not… unless .5″+ of it fell on Christmas.