Snow at Christmas is recorded in two ways – the number of stations that reported snow falling, and the number of stations that recorded snow on the ground at 9 am. The two charts show the snowiest Christmases for both measures since 1959.
The snowiest Christmas in terms of snow on the ground was in 2010, when 83% of stations recorded snow.
| Year | Percentage of stations reporting snow lying | |
| 1 | 2010 | 83% |
| 2 | 2009 | 57% |
| 3 | 1981 | 52% |
| 4 | 1995 | 40% |
| 5 | 2004 | 34% |
| 6 | 1999 | 30% |
| 7 | 1964 | 22% |
| 8 | 1993 | 21% |
| 9 | 1970 | 20% |
| 10 | 1968 | 14% |
The year when the highest number of stations reported snow falling was 2004, when 61% of stations reported snowfall.
| Year | Percentage of stations reporting snowfall | |
| 1 | 2004 | 61% |
| 2 | 1970 | 57% |
| 3 | 1993 | 51% |
| 4 | 1995 | 49% |
| 5 | 1964 | 47% |
| 6 | 1968 | 43% |
| 7 | 1999 | 42% |
| 8 | 2001 | 40% |
| 9 | 2000 | 35% |
| 10 | 1966 | 31% |
Visit our website to see the full history of snow at Christmas or find out how much snow we get in the UK each year.
Related articles
- Will it snow this Christmas? (metofficenews.wordpress.com)
Official blog of the Met Office news team 
2001 was a special snowy Christmas day for me. My daughter was only eight days old, and the three of us had a quiet Christmas Lunch at home together. Just as we sat down to eat the snowflakes came tumbling down.
I’m going to look at this map closely when I next move house – would be nice to live somewhere with a decent chance of snow falling on Christmas Day again.
I thought global warming was supposed to make it snow more. That’s what you said in 2010. What’s happened? Has global warming ended?
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/
Looks like it. When can we expect an announcement from the MetOffice?