There’s nothing like the romantic idea of waking up on Christmas morning to a blanket of freshly fallen snow. While it’s a common occurrence for some parts of the country, for others it’s nothing more than a pipe dream.

The National Weather Service defines a white Christmas as having at least one inch of snow on the ground at 7 a.m. local time on Christmas.

This year the “White Christmas forecast” is definitely lacking. Some areas in the northern tier of the country where you would expect to see snow on Christmas, might be missing out. However, there have been unlikely places to see snow in years past.

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This segment originally appeared in today's edition of the Morning Brief newsletter. Sign up here to get weekday updates from The Weather Channel and our meteorologists.

J​ennifer Gray is a weather and climate writer for weather.com. She has been covering some of the world's biggest weather and climate stories for the last two decades.