
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, December 18, 1993                   TAG: 9312180013
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DREAM ALL YOU WANT, CHRISTMAS WON'T BE WHITE

Kane Galleo was waiting for the calls. He had already started his research. He was ready to answer the question everybody would be asking:

Are we going to have a white Christmas this year?

Will there be snow on the streets, blanketing the fields, topping our chimneys?

Will fat white flakes fall gently on our holiday, tickle our cheeks, decorate the valley in Christmas magic?

Can we take our new sleds and skis out for a spin and have a snowball fight? Huh? Can we, huh, please?

"It's going to be wet, but I don't know about that white stuff," says Galleo, with the National Weather Service in Roanoke.

Precipitation will be above normal, which is good. But temperatures will be normal for the area, which is mostly above freezing and is bad news for the Bing Crosbys among us who every year dream of a white Christmas.

Fact is, a white Christmas around these parts is an anomaly, a blip on the charts.

A quick look at the weather on Dec. 25 for the past 40 years shows that we've had only six Christmases that could be called white. Six more had a "trace" of snow, which doesn't meet the Bing Crosby standard.

Roanoke, it's going to be another greenish brownish Christmas - not the stuff that carols are made of.

Given the long-range forecast, we may see some snow if the weather that day blows up from the Gulf of Mexico, carrying a lot of moisture. If it's cold enough, hovering around freezing, we could get some flakes, Galleo says.

But cold fronts from the west-northwest are generally drier.

Galleo says Roanoke Valley usually sees its first significant snow - more than an inch - in November. So we're already a little late. (The snows that frosted the mountain tops and dumped up to 10 inches on Floyd County on Wednesday are typical in the higher elevations, the New River Valley and west.)

And the past five winters have seen well below the average of 23.6 inches from November to March.

Except, of course, the Blizzard of '93, which buried Roanoke under 16 inches in one day. But it was 78 days too late for Santa.

But the 1990-91 and 1991-92 seasons each had a mere 1.2 inches, hardly enough for a decent snowman.

Is there a trend here? Is global warming happening in Western Virginia?

No. Not according to the state climatologist's office, anyway. The un-white Christmases of recent times could "easily be chalked up to climatological variability," says Jerry Stenger, research coordinator for the office, located at the University of Virginia.

Further, there's an element of human psychology involved here, Stenger asserts.

One, snows looked bigger "back then," because we were smaller.

Two, no one really cared about having a white Christmas until Crosby crooned about them.

Three, "those songs were largely written by Yankees."

by CNB