With a week to go, it’s looking iffy for a white Christmas in Kane County, IL.

As of 11 a.m. today (Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2018), the outlook is for a warmer and wetter Christmas Day. The forecast is not too much over freezing, however, and there’s still plenty of time for the forecast to change and the rain turn to snow on Dec. 25.

Overall, the odds of a white Christmas in Kane County are generally even, according to statistics provided by the National Weather Service Chicago.

NWS Chicago snowfall data collection began in 1885, so the following graphics are composed from 133 years of data. Data collection began at the University of Chicago, then at Midway, and presently at O’Hare which is now the official station for Chicago.

To see the daily climate data for Chicago for Christmas from 1871 to the present, click here.

Christmas Weather for Chicago

• Normal High And Low Temperature for Christmas:  32 and 18 degrees
• Warmest Christmas: 64 degrees in 1982
• Coldest  Temperature on Christmas: -17 degrees in 1983
• Coolest Christmas Daytime Temperature: -5 degrees in 1983
• Warmest Christmas Nighttime Low Temperature:  46 degrees in 1936
• Wettest Christmas: 0.50 inches in 1909 and 1950
• Frequency of Rainfall Christmas: 
  91 of 146 years (62%) Christmas’ measured precipitation
• Snowiest Christmas: 5.1 inches in 1950
• Frequency of Snowfall on Christmas: 
  72 of 133 years (54%) Christmas’ measured snowfall

Frequency Distribution of Snowfall

This data set shows that the most frequent amount of snowfall recorded on Christmas is 0.0 inches, which accounts for 46 percent of the days in the data set.

The next most frequent range is 0.1 inch through 0.9 inch followed closed by a Trace. The highest amount of snowfall recorded on Christmas occurred in 1950, when 5.1 inches of snow fell. In 2017, 0.1 inch of snow fell.

Additional Christmas Data

SOURCE: NWS Chicago