Will Wilmington see a white Christmas this year? Probably not, but it's going to be cold.

If you lived in Wilmington before it grew beyond being just a small Southern town on the coast, before Interstate 40 opened a floodgate of new residents moving to the Cape Fear coast, then you might remember the Port City's last white Christmas.

It was 1989, when the first President George Bush was in the White House and people were more worried about the Soviet Union than who won a television talent show, and when Wilmington was, fair to say, not very prepared to deal with snow.

And certainly not the 15 inches that fell in the days before Christmas.

"It was certainly an event, and quite frankly our city wasn't prepared for that,” Don Betz, mayor of Wilmington during the historic snowstorm, told the StarNews a decade ago. “It was the 100-year snowfall just like Floyd was the 100-year flood.”

Snow isn't very common in Southeastern North Carolina, and most people like it that way. It's even rarer on Christmas, with the Port City seeing only one white Christmas in the past 70 years. According to the National Weather Service in Wilmington, the Port City averages around 1 inch of snow per year. The national average is 28 inches of snow per year.

But there's something about a white dusting at Christmas that makes people change their minds about living with snow − at least for a day. So is there a chance of snow at Christmas this year?

Feel, just not look like Christmas

The short answer is probably not. But it will be cold.

Very cold.

Mark Bacon, meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Wilmington, on Monday said the cold front diving into the state later this week will bring Arctic Canadian air to Southeastern North Carolina, with daytime temperatures this weekend struggling to reach the mid-40s before dipping into the low 20s at night.

But the system will also push all the moisture north and out of the area, leaving Cape Fear coast residents enjoying a frigid, but dry Christmas.

"Don't shoot the messenger, but it's not looking good," Bacon said with a laugh. "It will feel like Christmas. It just won't look like Christmas."

For folks looking for a little white stuff for Christmas, snow could fall in southern Virginia and maybe the Triangle and Piedmont areas of North Carolina. But it won't be white in Wilmington.

"I would probably say at this point there's no chance," Bacon said.

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Why not to bet on snow

Only once in the past 70 years has snow been on the ground in the Port City when Christmas rolled around, according to the National Weather Service, and that was in 1989.

But any white stuff that does fall won't be like the blizzard of 1989, when the 15 inches that fell the days before Christmas made it the biggest snowstorm in Wilmington since the weather service started keeping records in 1870.

Sure, Dec. 23 in 1993 saw just under 1 inch fall in some areas, but it melted before Santa Claus arrived. And the Wilmington area saw tracings of snow on Dec. 26 (also known as Boxing Day in much of the English-speaking world) in 2010.

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Here are some Port City snow facts, courtesy of the weather service:

• Since 1870 Wilmington has recorded 241 inches of snow.

• The snowiest decade was the 1980s, thanks to 1989's massive storm, with 35.4 inches. But since then, snow has been increasingly rare in Wilmington.

• Since 2020 the Port City has only seen 0.5 inches of snow.

• The snowiest month in Wilmington is January, followed by February. Only 18% of snowfalls occur in December.

• The earliest snowfall in the Port City was Nov. 20, 1879.

• The latest measurable snow recorded was March 31, 1915.

How will climate change impact Wilmington's white weather chances?

Climatologists have said global warming, a result of humans pumping massive amount of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere starting with the Industrial Revolution in the early 1800s, is changing the world's climate, leading to warming temperatures.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, temperatures in North Carolina have risen by more than 1 degree Fahrenheit since the start of last century.

"Historically unprecedented warming is predicted this century," the agency's 2022 climate report for North Carolina states.

According to the weather service, the average temperature in Wilmington in December is nearly 50 degrees, with the lows dipping to 39 and the highs reaching 60 degrees.

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In other words, not weather conducive for snow.

But climate change is also forecast to bring more unpredictable weather patterns. That could see Alberta clippers from Canada dipping deeper into the Southern U.S., or tropical systems forming in the tropics in winter and moving up the coast to then interact with cold fronts creating ripe storm conditions.

Still, snow is never a common event in Southeastern North Carolina − especially in December. But this winter seeing any white stuff at the coast at all could be a big ask because of the La Nina weather pattern we're in, which generally brings warmer and drier weather to the Southeastern U.S.

Already all of the Cape Fear region and most of the state's coastal areas − 28% of North Carolina's land mass in all − is classified as in "moderate drought," according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

Reporter Gareth McGrath can be reached at GMcGrath@Gannett.com or @GarethMcGrathSN on Twitter. This story was produced with financial support from 1Earth Fund and the Prentice Foundation. The USA TODAY Network maintains full  editorial control of the work.

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Will Wilmington have a white Christmas this year?