Twelve miles from Lake Placid, along the White Face Mountain Memorial Highway, is North Pole, N.Y. There you can spend time in Santa's Workshop, enjoy the fresh Adirondack air and mail your holiday cards from the North Pole post office (ZIP code 12946).
And if you want a white Christmas, then go to North Pole on Dec. 25.
North Pole is one of the likeliest places in the Northeast to see snow on the ground Christmas morning -- with about a 96 percent chance of having any amount of snow -- according to Keith Eggleston, senior climatologist at the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell.
Eggleston estimated North Pole's chances of having a white Christmas based on climate data from nearby Tupper Lake, N.Y. While the Lake Placid weather station is closer, it only has been gathering snowfall data, officially, for 12 years, said Eggleston.
Since climatologists began saving data in 1948, Tupper Lake has seen two large amounts of snow on the ground on Christmas -- in 1970 and in 1978, when it had 29 inches. The average amount of snow on the ground for Dec. 25 is about nine inches. For the month of December, Tupper Lake averages 25.1 inches, and for January, Tupper Lake and Lake Placid receive 22.4 inches of snow on average, said Eggleston. Annually, Tupper Lake receives about 105.4 inches of snow.
Caribou, Maine, also is one of the likeliest places in the Northeast to see snow on the ground Christmas morning, with a 97 percent chance of at least 1 inch of snow.
Following close on the heels of Caribou and North Pole is Concord, N.H., where the chance of a white Christmas is 87 percent. For Portland, Maine, the chances of at least 1 inch of snow on Christmas morning stands at 83 percent. Burlington, Vt., follows on the list with 77 percent, and Syracuse, N.Y., rounds out the Northeast's top five with a 70 percent chance.
The probabilities for major metropolitan areas include: Buffalo, 57 percent (and Ithaca also has a 57 percent chance); Pittsburgh, 33 percent; Boston, 23 percent; New York City, 13 percent; Baltimore, 13 percent; Philadelphia, 10 percent; Cleveland, 10 percent; and Washington, D.C., 10 percent.
If you don't want a white Christmas in the Northeast, head south or to the coast. Both Atlantic City, N.J., and Richmond, Va., have a mere 7 percent chance of having a white Christmas.
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