Snow is falling this week and cold weather is back — but don’t hold your breath for a white Christmas.

“I’m certainly not going on record as saying we’ll have a white Christmas,” said Steve Freitag, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s office in White Lake. “There’s a 34.7% chance of one.”

The weather service bases its prediction on records between 1991 and 2020 and defines a white Christmas as one with at least an inch of snow on the ground.

“There’s some hope but certainly it’s not likely. I feel our prediction is accurate,” he said, adding that meteorologists are tracking a weather system that could change the outcome.

The Old Farmers Almanac issues weather predictions throughout the year. Perhaps none are read as closely as Dec. 25’s snow status, which the editors base on data from the National Weather Service, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This year, the almanac predicts a green Christmas in Michigan.

Winter technically starts on Dec. 21, the solstice marking the time when the sun is furthest from Michigan and delivers the least amount of daylight.

The almanac notes that nature is unpredictable but based its pronouncement on a 30-year historical average and the weather service’s forecast of a milder winter season.

Weather service records between 1874 and 2023 show southeast Michigan’s Christmas Day averages are:

• High: 33 degrees Fahrenheit

• Low: 22 degrees

• Precipitation: 0.08 inches

• Snow fall: 0.5 inches

• Snow depth: 2 inches

Despite weather service standards that require at least an inch of snow on the ground to qualify for a white Christmas, Freitag’s personal definition is a little different.

“To me it’s snow falling from the sky on Christmas Eve and Christmas,” he said. “We all want to see the snow globe.”