Having a white Christmas in Denver occurs approximately 38% of the time and Christmas 2023 looks like it will be added to the white Christmas list.

A white Christmas is officially defined as having at least one inch of snow on the ground at 7 a.m. local time Christmas Day, according to the National Weather Service.

The NWS archives show Denver has had 45 white Christmases since 1900, when snow depth measurement record keeping began. 

Christmas Day 1982 is the most memorable Christmas snow in the city’s history. The Christmas Eve blizzard brought the most snow recorded on the ground for Christmas Day in Denver’s recorded history — 23.8 inches at Stapleton International Airport.

Five white Christmases have occurred since 2011 and nine since 2000, with Christmas 2006 having the second-most measurable snow on the ground in Denver on Christmas morning — 15 inches. Only one other year, 1973, has there been 12 inches or more of snow on the ground since 1900.

The blizzard of 2006 started on Dec. 20 and brought snow accumulations from 1-2.5 feet across large areas of the Front Range from Cheyenne, Wyo. to Castle Rock. By Dec. 21 the storm had subsided, but left drifts from 6-12-plus feet in some areas.

In Denver, the NWS reported snow cover of an inch or more from the storm and subsequent storms persisted for 61 consecutive days, through Feb. 19, 2007. It was the second longest period of snow cover on record in the city.

On the other hand, it has only snowed on Christmas Day in the city one inch or more eight times since 1882: (1894 – 6.4″), (1912 -1.7″), (1939 – 1.4″), (1941 – 1.5″), (1964 – 1.2″), (2007 – 7.4″), (2014 – 3.4″), and (2015 – 2.3″).

This year’s forecast from multiple weather agencies, including ones from the NWS and European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), predicts snow starting Sunday, Christmas Eve, around metro Denver and the Interstate 25 corridor.

Snow accumulations based on the ECMWF model range between 4-8 inches, however, not nearly as much snow as in 1982 or 2006.

Playing in the Christmas snow

On Wednesday, holiday journeyers were traveling from Denver International Airport with gates to shorter destinations like Aspen, Steamboat Springs and Montrose all full, as reported by Denver Gazette reporter Carol McKinley.

McKinley reported Kevin Bogenreif, whose dad went to the School of Mines, spent some of his childhood here (Denver) and then moved away to Iowa, but returned this year and was hoping for a “white Christmas in the mountains” at the family cabin in Vail.

Skiing and riding at resorts in Colorado on Christmas Day is a mix bag of busy and not busy.

Numbers of skier visits for the 2022-23 season reported by Colorado Ski Country USA showed Colorado constituted for 23% of nationwide skier visits, with 14.8 million skier visits to Colorado resorts.

Using that number as a moniker to go off, Colorado’s slopes are usually busy, especially on weekends and holidays. 

Choosing the right place to ski or ride at on Christmas is not an exact science, but simple deduction suggests, the bigger the resort the more crowded it will be.

Four key factors question the role in how busy the slopes usually are on Christmas:

One: Did it snow within the last 24-36 hours?

Two: Is Christmas on a weekend day or shoulder day of a weekend?

Three: Is the snow coverage and terrain open small or large?

Four: Are visitors willing to travel farther away from hubs like Denver and Colorado Springs, and Eagle, Pitkin and Routt county airports to ski and ride?

For Christmas 2023, it will have snowed 24-36 hours beforehand, it is a shoulder day of the weekend, snow coverage and terrain open should go from small to larger, and an estimated 608,000 passengers are forecasted to travel through DIA from Monday to Monday (Dec. 18-26) — an 8% increase in travel from last year. 

The prognostication:

Skiing and riding at Summit, Eagle and Pitkin county resorts should be busier on Christmas Day, especially Breckenridge, Vail, Copper Mountain, and Snowmass, and perhaps Winter Park in Grand County.

Skiing and riding at farther away locations like Steamboat, Crested Butte, Monarch and Powderhorn could boast smaller crowds even with the fresh snow. Loveland and Arapahoe Basin have less terrain open this year compared to other years, which might limit people’s desires to ski and ride there, making those two resorts possibilities closer to the Front Range. 

The remaining Colorado resorts more than likely will have smaller crowds due to proximity to Denver and Colorado Springs and regional airports even though Christmas is on Monday.

The busiest days to ski around Christmas 2023 are from Dec. 23 to Jan. 6.