It will be a white Christmas for much of Canada, but most people will be seeing green.

About 80 per cent of the country — home to about 20 per cent of the population — will have snow cover on Dec. 25, Environment Canada climatologist David Phillips said Thursday.

Unseasonably warm weather in London, Ont., confused dandelions, which bloomed and then some turned to puffballs on Dec. 18.
(Dave Chidley/Canadian Press)

Later Thursday marks the official beginning of winter in the Northern Hemisphere, at precisely 7:22 p.m. ET. But for much of the country, it feels like spring, not winter.

And what you have is what you'll get, Phillips said. No big storm fronts are in sight, so if you don't have snow now, you're not going to get a white Christmas.

"I don't think any dreaming is going to do it," he said in reference to the hit song White Christmas, with its chorus: "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas."

Places like Quebec City and Thunder Bay, Ont., "are going to see, for the first time in history, a green Christmas." So will most of British Columbia, most of Central Canada and the Atlantic region.

Montreal, which used to have a white Christmas four out of five years (80 per cent of the time), now gets snow two out of three years (65 per cent), he said.

But Winnipeg, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Yellowknife and Iqaluit will have snow.

There's an upside to a green Christmas, Phillips said. Millions of Canadians travel over the holidays, and no snow makes it easier.