Merry (White) Christmas – 2008 | Vancouver Real Estate Blog

A white Christmas is a rare occurence in Vancouver. While many Vancouverites come originally from places where a white Christmas isn’t so unusual, once you become a Vancouverite you grow accustomed to our own Christmas tradition; the grey Christmas. Wet, moist, rain, overcast…that sort of thing.

I was speaking to my sister on Christmas eve and the two of us were trying to remember how many white Christmases we’d enjoyed in Vancouver. She insisted that she’d never had a single one. I, on the other hand, was quite certain that there was one in our past, if not two. The point is, whether it was one, two, or three…that’s not alot of white Christmases in the past 30 – 40 years for a Canadian city.

: Vancouver at Christmas

: Jake the Whippet

Apparently, both of our memories are flawed. Environment Canada has published data on the likelihood of Canadian cities receiving a white Christmas. According to their data, Vancouver has only an 11% chance of getting a white Christmas (and only a 4% chance of having a “perfect Christmas”). That’s tied with Victoria, for the lowest probability amongst all the cities that they studied.

Hmm…that would mean we’d have a white Christmas once every ten years. That’s a little more than I expected, but about on par for the one or two that I vaguely recollected (leaving one or two in years when I wasn’t in town).

If you are sitting around the Christmas dinner table this evening, and the topic of a white Christmas (hopefully, you aren’t talking about Vancouver real estate, a Vancouver realtor or even a Vancouver real estate blog) comes up you are now armed with the facts. Memories are so fickle (at least mine are)…but I hope that doesn’t stop you from making some wonderful new ones this year.

Merry Christmas

(and don’t forget to get out and enjoy some of that rare Christmas snow!)