Amid the sweltering midday heat and the recurring monsoon rains, many Filipinos dream of a “white Christmas” to cap off the year. Unlike the iconic imagery of Bing Crosby, a true white Christmas remains a distant fantasy for most locals. While thoughts of a snow-capped Baguio or a chilly, white-draped Intramuros evoke a sense of winter wonder, the reality is that snowfall has never been recorded in the Philippines. This invokes a lingering question: Is a white Christmas possible in a tropical archipelago?
Understanding existing patterns
Dr. Gerry Bagtasa (BSPHY, ‘03), head of the Atmospheric Physics Laboratory at the University of the Philippines-Diliman, elucidates the mechanisms behind snowfall. When water in clouds coalesces, it forms particles called “hydrometeors,” which eventually fall to the ground due to gravity. “If [the] cloud precipitates and the temperature from the cloud down to the ground is [below zero degrees Celsius], then precipitation becomes snow,” he adds.
The Philippines’ proximity to the equator results in high temperatures and humidity levels, significantly shaping its monsoon weather patterns. According to Bagtasa, the country’s geographical location and prevailing weather systems render snowfall highly improbable.
Bagtasa points out that snowfall in the tropics can occur only at extremely high altitudes. Mountains rising above four kilometers can create environments for snow, provided there is sufficient moisture and temperatures remain below freezing. Despite this, no mountain in the Philippines meets these conditions. Even Mount Apo, the country’s tallest peak, stands at only three kilometers. In contrast, Indonesia’s Mount Jayawijaya, Taiwan’s Mount Jade, and Myanmar’s Gamlang Razi occasionally experience snow due to their extreme peaks.
Frost, however, is a different phenomenon. While snow is a form of precipitation made up of individual ice crystals falling from clouds, frost appears as thin layers of ice, which deposit directly on solid surfaces when water vapor freezes in cold and humid conditions. The professor remarks that this weather phenomenon becomes pronounced in Cordillera during the Northeast Monsoon or Amihan season. Spanning from December to February, this period is characterized by a drop in temperature. Consequently, farmers face the risk of losing hundreds of produce, as frost can blanket and damage crops that are due for harvest.
Snowball effects of a white Christmas
While frost may be the closest thing to winter in the Philippines, a true snow-covered landscape remains a distant fantasy. Even during the last recorded ice age approximately 10,000 years ago, regions like the Philippines maintained their tropical monsoon climate. However, the professor notes a hypothesis on global glaciations known as “Snowball Earth.” This theory suggests that around 700 to 600 million years ago, ice covered even tropical areas due to a dramatic decline in greenhouse gas concentrations.
A glimpse of a white Christmas in the tropics would create a vastly different world. Bagtasa elaborates on the snowball effects that would ensue. In such a scenario, snow would persist across higher geographic latitudes, including the North and South Pole regions, which already receive limited sunlight to begin with. The theoretical picture depicts an Earth largely bordered by ice, with several areas also covered in snow.
This widespread ice coverage “will increase the albedo of Earth as a whole,” Bagtasa specifies, pertaining to the fraction of sunlight that is reflected by a surface, while the remainder of this is absorbed.
An increase in albedo would lead to global cooling and eradicate the occurrences of tropical cyclones. Normally, hurricanes and cyclones form due to the temperature differences between the high, low, and mid-latitudes. However, the absence of warm waters due to the mutual presence of snow in both the tropics and polar regions means there is little to no temperature gradient.
Bagtasa implies that in turn, with all of these factors rolling like an avalanche, “The globe, as we know it, would be too cold for [most] life [to thrive].”
This article was published in The LaSallian‘s January 2025 issue. To read more, visit bit.ly/TLSJanuary2025.
