The words White Christmas and West Texas do not often appear together, except one can make the point that there isn’t a White Christmas in the area, but there have been a couple of events where west Texans have seen Wizardry of a frigid Christmas.
As defined by the National Centers for Environmental Information(NCEI), a “White Christmas” is one in which at least one inch of snow falls on December 25th, or if there is still one inch of snow from the previous day.
There are official snowfall data available for Abilene and San Angelo, two of the largest cities in the NWS San Angelo County Warning Area.
| Year | Snow Amount (in inches) |
| 1926 | 2.0 |
| 1939 | 1.5 |
| 1974 | 0.01 |
| Year | Snow Amount (in inches) |
| 1939 | 4.0 |
| 1987 | 1.5 |
| 1975 | 0.2 |
| 2012 | 0.1 |
Since over 100 years ago, Abilene has had three “official” white Christmases, while San Angelo has had two. In 2009, Abilene experienced a Christmas Eve snowfall that left three inches of snow on the ground by Christmas morning. A Christmas was also the last one Abilene has experienced since the turn of the century.
Until Irving Berlin put his famous song into words, there hasn’t been a White Christmas in San Angelo, the NWS reports. Since before World War II, San Angelo hasn’t experienced a Christmas day with at least 1 inch of snow.
A White Christmas probability of just under 2% was calculated by the NWS for Abilene and slightly above 2% for San Angelo.