Swedish experts are ruling out a white Christmas for anybody living south of Sundsvall in Sweden, local media reported on Friday.

 

In a special Christmas weather forecast commissioned by newspaper Dagens Nyheter, meteorological agency SMHI has concluded that the immediate future is green.

 

"Temperatures will be above zero in the whole country for Christmas. If this was summer we would be experiencing a heatwave, " said SMHI's Sten Laurin.

 

In more northerly parts of Norrland, which have already seen plenty of snow this year, the ground will just about stay white despite temperatures being way above the average. The rest of country however has no chance of catching up.

 

"This is a very unusual occurrence," Laurin told the newspaper.

 

Children in Stockholm and central Sweden usually have a fifty- fifty chance of building snowmen on Christmas Day.

 

"Every second Christmas is usually green there, and every other one is white," said Laurin.

 

But Sweden's best chance of ensuring a white Christmas is to somehow engineer a new date for the yuletide festivities, the meteorologist said.

 

"If Christmas was moved to the end of February there would be a greater probability of a white Christmas," said Laurin.

 

(Xinhua News Agency December 16, 2006)