About Minnesota's chances of a statewide white Christmas...

If you're dreaming of a white Christmas and you live in Minnesota, there appears to be a pretty good chance your dream won't come true this year. It only takes an inch of snow on the ground to count as a white Christmas, but good luck finding that much snow in most of the state. 

The Friday-Saturday storm that has been much-discussed? It's still on track to go south of Minnesota, delivering a healthy blow of snow to Iowa, northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. For Minnesota snow-lovers, the European model's snowfall projection for the Friday-Saturday storm is depressing to look at. 

Overall, it's been bone-dry in Minnesota. To think that October might end up being snowier than November and December is crazy. The Twin Cities, fueled by that Oct. 20 storm, picked up 9.3 inches of snow in October. The metro got 8.8 inches of snow in November, but almost all of it falling Nov. 10-12. 

Check this stat out from the National Weather Service: 

"November 12 was the last day the Twin Cities saw an inch or more of snowfall. Since then we've had a total of 0.7". This is the 11th lowest amount of snow for this period (11/13-12/09) on record, and the least since 2006 (0.2"). We don't see any snow in the near future." 

That's brutal considering December is the second snowiest month on average (behind January) in the Twin Cities. While there is potential for snow early next week, the weather service is already saying it'll likely be light snow at best and that's only if the storm system that moves through can overcome dry air. 

"One can not rule out a rogue clipper during periods of northwest flow, but no impactful systems look likely through next week," the Twin Cities office of the NWS said in its Thursday morning forecast discussion. 

Novak Weather has been watching the long-range models closely, and he believes there might be more true winter weather on the way for Minnesota by the end of December. 

On the latest episode of the Way Over Our Heads podcast, climatologist Kenny Blumenfeld said "the chance of a statewide white Christmas is pretty low right now," noting that "we just don't have enough cold air in place." 

According to the Climate Prediction Center (CPC), the next 10 days or so should bring near-normal temperatures to Minnesota. But looking out further, the temperature forecast for Dec. 17-23 already has a 60% chance of being above normal. 

Per Blumenfeld, there is generally about a 75-80% chance of a white Christmas in the Twin Cities, so we're definitely going against the grain in 2020 (as if you didn't know that already).