Due to oceanic climate, the further west a country is in Europe, the lower the probability that it will have a white Christmas. For example, in southern France a white Christmas is very rare, while in Bucharest, Romania, which is at a similar latitude, it is much more likely. Northern Italy and the mountain regions of central-south Italy may also have a white Christmas. In cities such as Turin, Milan or Bologna a Christmas with falling snow or snow on the ground is not a rarity.

In the United Kingdom, white Christmases were more common from the 1550s to the 1850s, during the Little Ice Age. In modern times, for the purposes of betting, a Christmas is considered "white" if a single snow flake is observed falling onto the roof of the London Weather Centre in the 24 hours of 25 December, even without a perceivable quantity of snow.

In Ireland, the prospect of early winter snow is always remote due to the country's mild and wet climate. Bookmakers offer odds every year for a "white Christmas", which is officially snow being recorded at 09:00 local time on Christmas Day, and recorded at either Dublin Airport, Belfast International Airport or Cork Airport (bets are offered for each airport). Snow is most common in the north, and as such Belfast usually has better odds than Dublin, and considerably better odds than Cork, which is at the extreme south of the country. Ireland's last "official" white Christmas was in 2004.

Some of the least-likely white Christmases that have happened include the 2004 Christmas Eve Snowstorm, which brought the first white Christmas in 50 years to New Orleans and caused the first recorded white Christmas to Houston, Texas. The 2004 storm also brought the first measurable snow of any kind since 1895 to Brownsville, Texas, and its Twin city of Matamoros, Mexico. The Florida winter storm of 1989 also occurred immediately before Christmas causing a white Christmas for cities like Pensacola and Jacksonville. The same storm buried Wilmington, North Carolina and the rest of Southeastern North Carolina under 15 inches of snow; even small amounts of snowfall are rare in the area.

In the United States the notion of a white Christmas is often associated in the American popular consciousness with a Christmas celebration that includes traditional observances in the company of friends and family. White Christmas is an Irving Berlin song reminiscing about an old-fashioned Christmas setting.

The Meteorological Service of Canada compiled a list of the probability of a White Christmas in selected Canadian cities:

2006 saw some of the warmest weather on record, with such places as Quebec City experiencing their first green Christmas in recorded history.

In 2008, Canada experienced the first nation-wide white Christmas in 37 years, as a series of pre-Christmas storms hit the nation, including the normally rainy BC Pacific coast.

According to the National Climatic Data Center, basing numbers upon 1988-2005 data and stations with at least 25 years of data, the probability of a White Christmas (one inch of snow on the ground) at selected cities is as follows:

According to research by CDIAC meteorologist Dale Kaiser, the United States during the second half of the 20th century experienced declining frequencies of White Christmases, especially in the northeastern region.