"A series of storms in the West make snow for Christmas likely there and northern New England always has a good chance, but it depends on the weather systems," Tom Ross, a meteorologist with NOAA, told United Press International.

"Actually, it could snow anywhere in the United States on Christmas -- it's happened in Jacksonville and Tallahassee, Fla., however, it would be very, very unusual to have it snow in Miami."

NOAA used probability maps based on long-term averages of snowfalls to determine the probability of having at least 1 inch of snow on Dec. 25 based on data from 1961 to 1990.

The report by NOAA is available online at www.nndc.noaa.gov. It contains maps and tables showing the probabilities for a snow depth of at least 1 inch on Christmas morning, as well as the probabilities for a depth of at least 5 inches and 10 inches by city. The probabilities are based on long-term climatology and not on current weather patterns.

According to NOAA, the places with the greatest probability (100 percent) for at least a 1-inch snow depth in the continental United State are: Marquette, Mich., Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., Hibbing, Minn., International Falls, Minn., and Stampede Pass, Wash.

Stampede Pass, Wash., also has the greatest probability for at least a 5-inch snow depth in the continental United States as well as having the greatest probability for at least a 10-inch snow depth.

The NOAA snow probabilities use weather data collected over the last 150 years, ranging from handwritten observations taken by volunteers in the 19th century to more sophisticated radar, radiosonde, rocketsonde and satellite observations by state-of-the-art equipment today.

But what about Buffalo, N.Y.? Isn't it considered to be the not only New York's snow capital but the nation's as well? Buffalo, which usually gets about 90 inches of snow a year, has only a 49 percent chance of having 5 inches of snow on the ground on Dec. 25, according to the NOAA probability data, NOAA meteorologist Richard Heim told UPI.

However, using different weather data, meteorologists at the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., found Buffalo, N.Y., has a slightly higher probably of snow at 57 percent.

"I was surprised by Buffalo not being closer to the top of the list," Keith Eggleston told UPI. "Even though Buffalo gets the lion's share of attention when it comes to snow, Syracuse gets more and leads the state and often the country in amount of snow each year for a large city."

According to Cornell, Caribou, Maine, is the likeliest place in the Northeast to see snow on the ground Christmas morning, as are Concord, N.H., Syracuse, N.Y., Portland, Maine, and Binghamton, N.Y.

Places least likely to see snow on Christmas in the Northeast are: Pittsburgh at 30 percent, Boston at 12 percent, Baltimore at 7 percent, New York City at 4 percent and Washington, D.C., 3 percent.

Every 10 years, the climate center at Cornell recalculates its probabilities for a white Christmas based on the previous 30 years of information.

"Starting this year, we dropped off the 1960s and added the 1990s," said Eggleston. "If we added the 1960s back, the probabilities would likely increase, but we are interested in calculating climate normals -- that is standard throughout the world.

"Thirty years is enough to get a pretty good idea about the climate. It's pretty stable. But, if you want to see a trend, you work with more recent years," he added.

Before the data change, North Pole, N.Y., was the most likely place in the Northeast to have snow on Christmas.

"It was one of the likeliest places with a 96 percent chance of having some snow on the ground," Eggleston said.

North Pole, N.Y., located 12 miles from Lake Placid in the Adirondacks, is where Santa's Workshop is located and where, for the past 50 years, children have met the Jolly Ole Elf in his log cabin, fed the reindeer, watched elves at work, mailed letters and had them postmarked "North Pole, N.Y." (ZIP code 12946) and touched the north pole -- a pole made of ice.

Opened in 1949, Santa's Workshop was the nation's first theme park, and it attracted a lot of families with baby boomers to Whiteface Mountain, and it's still in operation.

Since climatologists began saving data in 1948, Tupper Lake, the nearest weather station to North Pole, N.Y., has seen two occasions when 29 inches of snow piled up at Christmas -- in 1970 and in 1978. The average amount of snow on the ground for Dec. 25 is about 9 inches. Annually, Tupper Lake receives about 105.4 inches of snow.