How Rare Is Rain On Christmas In Duluth? Has It Happened Before?

Nothing about the start to this winter has been all too normal. While we've seen a few cold days and a bit of snow, Northern Minnesota and Wisconsin is mostly eying up a brown Christmas this year.

Not only does snow not seem to be in the cards for Duluth, Superior, and much of the Northland, but to pour a little salt in the wound for snow lovers - it is supposed to rain on Christmas. Yes, rain. On Christmas. In the Northland.

Granted, there are some times on Christmas Day we might see a rain-snow mix or some snow (without the rain), we're in for a warm Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the Northland.

In Duluth, for example, the National Weather Service says we'll see a daytime high of 44 degrees.with rain in the forecast through much of the day, with a chance of some rain-snow mix or snow on Christmas Eve night.

Christmas Day, we might see some early snow before the sun comes up, before things warm up back into the mid-30s and the precip falling from the sky shifts to rain or a sloppy mix that could sort of resemble snow at times. Most of the day, though, the National Weather Service anticipates rain in the Twin Ports area.

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Rain on Christmas, as you would guess, is pretty rare in this part of the world. The National Weather Service shared some "fun facts" today highlighting just how rare it is to see rain on Christmas in the Twin Ports area.

In their post, they note that Duluth has never seen a recorded instance of an all-liquid precipitation event on Christmas since the National Weather Service started officially recording Duluth's weather data at the airport on top of the hill back in 1948.

That means if things are on the slightly warmer side on Christmas this year, it'll be the first time ever recorded in the 75 years of weather data from that location they have for Duluth that we saw rain (with no snow mixed in) on Christmas.

They do point out that there have been some years where some rain has fallen along with other forms of precipitation on Christmas. They highlighted 2016 as one such example, where Duluth saw some rain as part of a mixed bag of precipitation.

The forecast does currently look like we won't see all rain on Christmas day, but a majority of the day looks like it could be rainy. Personally, I'm hoping we don't set a new Christmas record and get all rain. But we'll just have to wait to see what Mother Nature has in mind for us this year.

The 15 Least Snowy Winters On Record In Duluth History

Since the National Weather Service began keeping weather records in Duluth in the late 1800s, here are the 15 winters with the lowest snowfall totals on historical record.

It is worth noting that the official records from 1941-today have been recorded at the area now known as the Duluth International Airport (away from the lake, on top of the hill). Before then, various locations closer to Lake Superior had been used for official weather recording data. For anyone that knows anything about how Lake Superior and the hill play a role in temperature and snow, you can see how this makes older records inherently different.

While these records note the "least snowy winters", they actually include all seasonal snowfall from July 1 through June 30 of the following year.

Gallery Credit: Nick Cooper - TSM Duluth