STV's Sean Batty: Scotland could still be in for a white Christmas - despite warm December weather

The weather has been going a bit crazy around the world recently – from heatwaves in Australia, extreme cold in Russia and Scandinavia and Spain hitting a new December record of 30C yesterday.

As well as all this, a powerful jet stream is developing in the Pacific which means most of the US and Canada will have a milder-than-usual Christmas along with a green Christmas for many, so the city of Chicago won’t live up to its snowy Home Alone scenes – and we thought it was like that every Christmas Day there!

While the Christmas forecast for our friends over the Atlantic is pretty much nailed on, for us it’s all still up in the air. This is partly down to an extremely strong area of high pressure to the west of us – unusual in a winter with El Nino conditions, however, it’s the behaviour of this system that will determine our Christmas fate.

There is very little agreement across our models at the moment where we go after this weekend which will be very mild, and most definitely not festive, with highs of 14-15C possible in Moray and Aberdeenshire.

Saying that, there is a consensus for a decrease in temperatures linked to many predicting that the high pressure will drift north and allow a more northerly flow to develop. Some computer models also show potential for some very snowy conditions in the north of the country in the days leading up to Christmas – which could be disruptive if they come off.

So while it’s still very much low confidence at this stage, I’d say our chances of snow and cold weather for Christmas are definitely increasing.

So currently, I’ll go for chances of getting your sledge out 60% and needing your wellies 30%.

I’ll update you every few days in the run-up to Christmas with my latest thoughts…