Will you have a white Christmas in 2024?

If you’re dreaming of a white Christmas anywhere in the U.S. this year, you’re in better luck than last year — despite a forecast of unseasonably warm Christmas Day temperatures that could bring more rain and spring-like thunderstorms than snow over the next few days.

The National Weather Service officially considers a place to have had a white Christmas if there is already an inch of snow on the ground, or if new snow falls on at least an inch on Christmas Day.

The snow cover forecast is based on the Snow Data Assimilation System, which is a computer model from the National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center, which is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“This year is shaping up to be an interesting snow season,” said Shawn Carter of the National Weather Service. There is “a pretty good chance,” he said, that the country will see more white Christmases overall this year than last year.

Many of the areas likely to see snow this year have historically had the highest probability of an inch of snow by Christmas.

Atmospheric rivers out west have already delivered snow across some of the regions higher elevations and will continue to do so. In many places in the country’s northern range, there will also be snow on the ground, including the interior of the North East, where the amount of snow has been well above normal. Unfortunately, warmer temperatures will make Christmas a wet holiday this year for many, with rain possible from Texas to Illinois.

Three years ago, NOAA updated the average probabilities of a white Christmas across the United States. Although the report cautioned against comparing the new estimates to those created a decade earlier, it said “more areas saw declines in their chances of a white Christmas than saw increases.”

Classic Christmas movies like “Miracle on 34th Street” depict snow falling at Christmastime in New York City, but Central Park hasn’t seen an inch of snow this Christmas in more than a decade.

It’s not the first time the city has gone so long without an inch of snow on Christmas Day. The song “White Christmas” was written during one of the long, snowless Christmas seasons.

Irving Berlin appears to have begun writing the song in 1938, according to James Kaplan, the writer of “Irving Berlin: New York Genius.” This was “when he spent a lot of time in Hollywood,” said Mr. Kaplan in an interview before Christmas last year.

Mr. Berlin was not very happy to be on the West Coast, said Mr. Kaplan, and it is possible that he felt some nostalgia for the old days on the Lower East Side where he grew up.

White Christmases were common in New York City by the turn of the 19th century, according to data from the National Weather Service. But when Mr. Berlin wrote the song in the late 1930s, New York City had not seen a white Christmas since 1930.

To begin with, said Mr. Kaplan, had Mr. Berlin wrote an extra verse for the beginning of the song.

It went like this: “The sun is shining, the grass is green, the oranges and palm trees are swaying. There’s never been a day like this in Beverly Hills, LA, but it’s December 24th and I’m dying to be up north.”

But that’s not how the tune was sung by Bing Crosby, who cut the first verse and began with the familiar chorus: “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones I used to know.” Since then, others have uncovered the missing verse and added it their own versions of the song.

Mr. Kaplan said that Mr. Crosby’s recording of the song, as well as the onset of World War II, was a “huge accelerator” of its fame and profitability. “Because Bing Crosby’s recording of the song was heard by soldiers and sailors overseas at the beginning of the war,” he said.

The United States entered the war after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Mr. Crosby’s recording was released the next year.

According to weather service data for Central Park, in the years after Mr. Berlin wrote the song, there was no snow on Christmas in New York until 1945, a few months after the end of the war.

With flakes possibly late on Christmas Eve, New Yorkers at least have a chance to break out of the long white Christmas drought. The last time New York City recorded a snow depth or new snowfall of at least an inch on Christmas Day was in 2009.

Historically, New York City has had a white Christmas only 25 of the past 154 years, or about once every six years, according to the National Weather Service.