White Christmas not likely for Surrey, White Rock, Lower Mainland
Published 2:30 pm Thursday, December 18, 2025
Despite the potential of snow flurries in the forecast for Metro Vancouver, a white Christmas is not likely for the Lower Mainland.
If snow flurries do happen, it will be Tuesday night (Dec. 23) and Wednesday morning (Dec. 24) — and they will probably be wet flurries, mainly at higher elevations, Environment and Climate Change meteorologist Brian Proctor said Thursday (Dec. 18).
“We’ve been really transitioning from this sort of southwest to northeast flow aloft (that) we’ve had over the last little while. It’s brought all these series of atmospheric corridors into the south coast of B.C.,” Proctor said. “We’re really transitioning into a far more westerly flow aloft at this point in time, which is much more typical of we would experience (at this time of year).”
A gradual downward trend in daytime temperatures as well as a downturn in overnight low temperatures is forecast, and that’s closer to “what we should be seeing this time of year.”
“What it means more than anything else is, we’re still going to see rain and showers and windy conditions out there at times … but we’re not seeing the tremendously heavy amounts of rain that we’ve been seeing,” Proctor said.
If wet flurries do happen, or rain mixed with snow, they’ll likely be at higher elevations such as Panorama Ridge or the Surrey high lands, as well as “the usual suspects” North Delta, the North Shore and Coquitlam, he continued.
‘“Typically for us, if we use Vancouver Airport as a proxy station for the long range, we have about an eight per cent chance of seeing a white Christmas in Vancouver,” said Proctor. “In general terms, it’s not looking highly probable at this point. We’re just looking more seasonally expected weather … the key thing in the forecast for people to be listening to, is watch for those winds at times. It’s going to be breezy at times.”
