WARM CHRISTMAS FORECAST

Two years ago Southeast Missourians awoke to a white Christmas.

A year ago, Cape Girardeau had a trace of snow on Christmas.

But Mother Nature would have to buck some pretty big odds to produce the white stuff for Christmas Day 1995.

Sunny and warm is the forecast of the National Weather Service for Christmas Day throughout most of Missouri. The same is in store for Southern Illinois.

It isn't going to look at all like Christmas in Missouri this year, said the National Weather Service, which issued the weekend forecasts calling for temperatures in the mid-to-upper 40s today and into the 50s Christmas Day.

The extended forecast calls for clear to partly cloudy skies Monday, with highs in the 50s and lows near 40. Tuesday may be even warmer, with highs reaching into the 60s.

Highs Friday ranged from 42 in Kansas City and Springfield to 38 in St. Louis. Lows were from 36 in Cape Girardeau to 29 in St. Joseph.

Motorists traveling along Interstate 55 Friday afternoon, however, reported snow flurries north of Cape Girardeau to Perryville.

"If you were outside you may have noticed it," said a spokesman for the Missouri Highway Patrol at Flat River. "But it wasn't enough to measure."

Cape Girardeans haven't experienced many white Christmas holidays over the past two decades.

There has been snow -- plenty of it -- but not on Christmas Day.

One of the heaviest snows hit the Cape Girardeau area in February 1979, when a total of 24 inches fell in two days. But no snow was reported on Christmas Day 1978 or Christmas Day 1979.

In 1983, 1989 and 1990, snow fell in the area the day after Christmas, and in 1975, 1981 and 1986, snow fell the day before Christmas but was mostly melted by Christmas Day.

Turning the calendar back to the 1960s, a 4-inch snow on Dec. 24, 1966, did stick around for a white Christmas.