CALGARY -- With less than two weeks remaining ahead of Christmas Day 2019, it's a near certainty that the snow blanketing Calgary will remain in place through the holiday season.

But, according to research compiled by Nestpick, December snowfall is expected to diminish in Calgary in the decades leading to 2050.

The study found Calgary had an average of seven days where more than 0.25 cm of snowfell in December between 2009 and 2013, and an average of six days of more than 0.25 cm of snowfall in December between 2014 and 2018.

Researchers project Calgary will experience an average of three days of December snowfall by 2050.

Nestpick, a company that offers furnished apartment rentals around the world, conducted the study using December snow accumulations over the last 10 years in the northern hemisphere to help project 2050 snow numbers.

The projections are based on the climate change research of an ecologist at the University of Gent who determined long-range climate forecasts should not be based on a select city's past, but the current records in an area hundreds of kilometres south of that city.  Jean-Francois Bastin found Stockholm's 2050 climate will be similar to that of present day Budapest,  London's future climate will compare to Barcelona's current climate, and Seattle's weather will near that of San Francisco.

Of the 40 northern hemisphere cities studied, Calgary was predicted to have the eighth largest reduction in average annual number of December snow days from 2009-2018 to 2050.

  1. Montreal (10.5 snow days to 1 snow day)
  2. Ottawa (10.5 snow days to 3 snow days)
  3. Helsinki (9.5 snow days to 2 snow days)
  4. St. Petersburg (10 snow days to 3 snow days)
  5. Kiev (8.5 snow days to 2 snow days)
  6. Oslo (8 snow days to 2 snow days)
  7. Munich (8 snow days to 3 snow days)
  8. Calgary (6.5 snow days to 3 snow days)
  9. Prague (6.5 snow days to 3 snow days)
  10. Stockholm (5.5 snow days to 2 snow days)

Only three of the cities included in the study (Chicago, Beijing and Belfast) were projected to have more December snow days in 2050 than present day.

The complete findings of the study are available at Nestpick – White Christmas Index