ITHACA, N.Y. – Want a sure bet for experiencing a white Christmas?

According to Cornell University’s Northeast Regional Climate Center, the most likely spot in the Northeast for at least an inch of snow on the ground on Christmas Day is Pinkham Notch, N.H.

The New Hampshire community – the starting point for many skiing and hiking trails on Mount Washington – has an all-but-guaranteed 96 percent probability of snow on Dec. 25, said senior climatologist Keith Eggleston.

In fact, based on weather records over the past 50

years, Pinkham Notch has

been deprived of a white

Christmas only once – 1957.

“I wouldn’t doubt we’re having a white Christmas this year, since we were pounded with 47 inches of snow during the [Dec. 6] Nor’easter,” said Rob Burbank of the Appalachian Mountain Club, which operates a visitors’ center in Pinkham Notch.

Eggleston said Pinkham Notch’s snowiest Christmas on record occurred in 1970 when 21 inches fell on Christmas Day, adding to the 29 inches already on the ground.

After Pinkham Notch, the places with the next-best chance of a white Christmas are two other perennially snowbound communities: Caribou, Maine, and Boonville, N.Y., both at 94 percent.

Caribou has had a white Christmas every year since weather measurements were first recorded in 1940, although in three of those years (1973, 1998 and 2001), there were only trace amounts.

Boonville, which sits at the tip of the Tug Hill Plateau, has had just two green Christmases, in 1957 and 1979.