Sunderland weather: Met Office issues long-term weather forecast for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day

The countdown to Christmas is continuing with plans being made across the North East and the Met Office has now announced its weather predictions across the key dates over the Christmas period. The weather service is able to predict weather up to one month in advance, with predictions becoming more likely as Christmas Day edges closer.

What is the Met Office forecast in December for Sunderland?

In the build up to the big day, the week is set to start with cloudy conditions with any rainfall expected to fade away before reaching the North East. As Christmas edges closer, the Met Office are predicting settled weather in the days before the big day thanks to high pressure systems in northern areas, which is likely to lead to light winds and minimal clouds.

What is the Met Office forecast for Christmas in Sunderland?

Although confidence from the Met Office is low towards the end of December, the service are expecting the settled weather to move away with systems from the west bringing slightly cooler than usual weather, although average temperatures for the time of year are also expected at times. The Met Office is also expecting higher rates of overnight frost and fog throughout the final week of the year. The chances of a white Christmas are minimal with any mention of snow only being relevant for high ground across northern areas.

What are the chances of a White Christmas in Sunderland?

Although the forecast from the Met Office has no mention of snow, bookmakers are offering odds of areas across the UK seeing a white Christmas. Bets can be made for snow to fall at a selection of cities with the closest to Sunderland being Newcastle, which has odds of 5/1 to see snowfall on Christmas Day. This puts the North East spot at second after joint leaders Glasgow and Edinburgh which are priced at 9/2.

The definition of a white Christmas is set by the Met Office, who describe it as “one snowflake to be observed falling in the 24 hours of December 25.” The weather service has stations which can detect snow across the UK. These are predominantly based at airports. Any snowfall is unlikely to settle on the ground, although those flakes could still count towards an official white Christmas.

Why is the Met Office Christmas forecast so vague initially?

Despite these predictions, the Met Office says that longer-range forecasts are not wholly accurate and as the day gets closer the more accurately the weather service believe it can predict what the weather will be like on any given date.

It is only within five days that the Met Office truly believes it is able to give an accurate representation of a weather forecast at the local level.