Many Scots have been dreaming of a white Christmas - but could it become a reality?
It's been around ten years since the last widespread snowfall on Christmas Day across the UK, and after a turbulent year, many are hoping for a return of the frosty weather this year.
What is a white Christmas?
Contrary to what you may think, a white Christmas doesn't actually mean a picturesque blanket of snow. Meteorologists at the Met Office define a white Christmas as one were one snowflake is observed falling in the 24 hours of 25 December somewhere in the UK.
In the past, a single location down in London, the Met Office's building, was used to define a white Christmas - but now, they look at a number of extra locations, including several in Scotland. These include Pittodrie Stadium in Aberdeen and Edinburgh Castle.
How likely is a white Christmas in Scotland?
We should know if there is going to be snow on Christmas around five days before the big day.
The Met Ofice say that, since 1960, around "half of the years have seen at least 5% of the network record snow falling on Christmas Day". From this, they believe that we can expect more than half of all Christmas Days to be white.
But while this is just dependent on that single snowflake, there has only been a widespread covering of snow on the ground four times since 1960—in 1981, 1995, 2009 and 2010.
This means it's a bit rarer for us to see snow on the ground, but not impossible.
Weather through the years
We've seen all sorts of weather across the country on Christmas day, from sunshine to snow.
In 1981, Kindrogan in Perthshire recorded 47cm of snow, marking the deepest snow recorded on Christmas day so far.
This was quickly followed by Wales in 2010, which recorded 45cm at Cae Poeth in Gwynedd, and England in 1981 and 2009, where 43cm fell at Buxton in Derbyshire and Malham Tan in North Yorkshire respectively.
The warmest Christmas day in Scotland was recorded in both 2011 and 2016, and saw temperatures of 15.1°C at Dyce in Aberdeenshire and Urquhart in Ross and Cromarty respectively.
The hottest day across the UK was recorded in 1920 in Killerton in Devon, which saw temperatures of 15.6°C.
Surprisingly, we have not taken the crown for the wettest Christmas day - our rainiest day was back in 2011, where 70.5mm of rain was recorded at Achnargart in Ross and Cromarty.
The wettest Christmas day in the UK was in 2015 when 165.4 mm of rain fell in Capel Curig ,Gwynedd.
But where we fell in rainfall, we made up for in wind. The windiest Christmas day recorded was at Sella Ness in Shetland in 2011 when gusts up to 101 mph were recorded.
Our coldest Christmas day was back in 2010, when people in Altnaharra in Sutherland were awoken with temperatures of -18.2°C. We just narrowly missed out on the top spot, which was taken by Gainford in Durham , who recorded -18.3 °C in 1878.
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