Holiday Christmas Travel: Seacoast Dreaming of a Wintry Mix

The Seacoast has a chance at a white Christmas along with a light wintry mix falling Christmas Day while flight cancellations are minimal at area airports.

The National Weather Service Gray, Maine has issued a Winter Weather Advisory in effect for southern New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts all say Saturday into early Sunday morning as snow overspreads the area in the overnight hours of Christmas Day.

The snow will likely make for slippery driving conditions on Christmas Day

Inland and northern areas of New Hampshire will see the most snow from the storm after starting as a wintry mix and then changing over to snow, according to forecaster Sarah Ghumberg in Gray.

It will be all snow in northern areas of New Hampshire with an accumulation of 1-2 inches and a half-inch to an inch on the Seacoast. Interior areas of York County could see upwards of three inches.

The precipitation will start as snow when it reaches the Seacoast.

"Early morning definitely is the best time for snow on the Seacoast around that sunrise time. By midmorning that's when we start mixing in freezing rain and sleet. It will then transition over to rain in the southern coastal areas while by Portmouth it will be rain and a wintry mix," Ghumberg told Seacoast Current.

The precipitation will change back to freezing rain and sleet by evening before ending Sunday morning at daybreak.

Does It Mean a White Christmas

Ghumberg said the National Weather Service does not have an official definition of what constitutes a White Christmas. However, Townsquare Media meteorologist Dan Zarrow said that a White Christmas is generally considered to be 1+ inch of snow on the ground on Christmas Eve or Day.

Many areas of the Seacoast away from the immediate coast have some snow on the ground ranging from a trace to an inch or two.

"However considering we did just get some freezing rain which makes the snow a little more resilient to melting out with any rain it is likely we will have snow in most areas," Ghumberg said.

United Airlines canceled 169 flights nationwide as of Friday morning, according to FlightAware.com, because of the impact of the Omicron COVID-19 variant on its flight and operations crews, according to a memo obtained by CNN.

None of those flights were from Manchester-Boston Regional Airport and just one originated from Boston's  Logan International Airport.

Delta Airlines, which does not serve Manchester, had 127 canceled flights nationwide. Only one originated from Boston.

Contact reporter Dan Alexander at Dan.Alexander@townsquaremedia.com or via Twitter @DanAlexanderNH