While ongoing showers might suggest this Christmas will be a washout, experts say a wintry snap is on its way and some areas of the UK might even have a white Christmas.

According to the Met Office, high pressure is building – meaning that, while some areas may experience showers, many will have drier and more settled weather.

The UK’s national meteorological service added that a strong easterly breeze would make it feel colder – although not unusually so for this time of year, with temperatures on Christmas Day expected to reach a daytime high of 7C and night-time lows at -3C or -4C. As a result, Father Christmas might be accompanied by Jack Frost.

“The south coast of England down towards South Devon and Cornwall perhaps [has] the greatest chance of seeing the odd wintry flurry if there were to be [any],” Marco Petagna, of the Met Office, told the Guardian. “Of course, for a white Christmas, technically now all we need is one flake of snow to fall anywhere in the UK. And it’s not an unusual occurrence – it’s more unusual for it to be lying snow.”

Snow in Holcombe, Greater Manchester, February 2021. Most of the UK’s snow days actually happen between January and March. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

According to the Royal Meteorological Society (RMetS), a snowflake has tumbled from the sky on Christmas Day 54 times over the past 66 years at least somewhere in the UK, and except for 2024, every year since 2020 has technically been deemed “white”.

In 2023, 11% of weather stations recorded snow falling on Christmas Day, and 9% in 2022, although snow was not recorded as settling in either year. Indeed, as the RMetS notes, a thick blanket of snow at Christmas has only occurred four times since 1960 – in 1981, 1995, 2009 and 2010 – with 2010 having snow on the ground at 83% of stations, the highest percentage ever recorded.

But anyone expecting festive snowball fights is likely to be in for a disappointment this year. “The chance of noteworthy snowfall is only around 10%, so nothing significant,” said Petagna.

It was not always thus: the little ice age meant that between the 16th and 19th centuries it was more common to have a harsh winter – perhaps explaining why the writings of Charles Dickens, who was born in 1812, often refer to a cold and snowy Christmas. In addition, before 1752, when the transition to the Gregorian calendar was completed in Britain, 25 December fell later in the winter.

Snow at Cheltenham racecourse, February 1963 – a particularly harsh winter. Photograph: Maeers/Getty Images

More recently, particularly harsh winters have included those of 1946–47 and 1962-63. “Much of England remained covered in snow every day from late December until early March 1963,” the Met Office has noted.

The rarity of festive snow cover today is, perhaps, not a surprise, given the climate crisis. Met Office data has revealed Decembers in the UK have become warmer in recent decades – conditions that reduce the overall chance of snowfall on Christmas day, although natural variability means cold and snowy spells can still occur.

But just because a snowy Christmas is unlikely this year, it doesn’t mean snowballs are a thing of the past: the Met Office notes that most of the UK’s snow days happen between January and March.

As the poet Sara Coleridge put it: “January brings the snow, makes our feet and fingers glow.”

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A new in-wheel motor for electric vehicles (EVs) delivers a massive amount of torque in a lightweight package, its developers say.

The motor — which was made by YASA, a subsidiary of Mercedes-Benz that also provides motors to Ferrari — weighs only 28 pounds (12.7 kilograms) but can deliver up to 1,000 horsepower at once or a sustained 469 to 536 hp for longer durations. This new mark breaks YASA’s own previous unofficial record, a 29-pound motor that yielded 738 horsepower, company representatives said in a statement.

For comparison, the 2025 Nissan Leaf has a single motor that generates 214 hp, and even a high-performance EV like the Tesla Model S utilizes three motors to generate around 1,020 hp.

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The ability to pack so much power into such a compact, lightweight motor is due in part to YASA’s axial flux technology. Traditional radial flux motors are longer, tube-like structures, with a stator — the stationary part of a motor that creates a magnetic field used to produce motion — surrounding a cylindrical rotor. A magnetic field is passed perpendicularly to the shaft through the cylinder to spin the rotor.

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Yangang Xing had never heard of organ-tuning books, but his colleague Andrew Knight often played the pipe organ at churches as a teenager.

When the pair, who are researchers at Nottingham Trent University, set out to study how environmental conditions in churches had changed over time, Knight explained that all over the country many organs had notebooks full of data tucked away in their recesses.

“I would sit at the organ between hymns, or between weddings,” said Knight. “Quite often, the only thing to look at between services was this little red book that sat in the corner.”

Xing realised organ-tuning books were troves of data that might span decades. “We said, ‘Oh, this is a goldmine,’” he recalled.

Organ tuners make brief records of their visits and often jot down observations in the books. Photograph: The Reengineer

Organ tuners make brief records of their visits and often jot down observations, including the temperature and humidity inside the building. Materials within organs are sensitive to climatic changes, which can knock the majestic instruments out of tune.

Earlier this month, Xing, Knight and their colleague Bruno Bingley published a paper in the journal Buildings & Cities, with preliminary data gleaned from 18 organ-tuning books associated with churches in London, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. The records date back to 1966 and indicate a rise in average temperatures inside churches since then, during winter and summer periods.

It reflects that churches are being heated, artificially, to a greater extent today than in the past but also that these old buildings are getting warmer even in summer months when heating systems are more likely to be turned off – a “hint” of global heating, said Knight.

The average summer temperature for urban churches in the sample was 17.2C during the late 1960s. By the 2020s it had reached 19.8C.

“It quantifies what we’ve seen,” said Andrew Scott, the managing director of Harrison & Harrison, a Durham-based company that builds and services pipe organs. “A rise of internal ambient temperature through the unheated summer months due to rising temperatures outside.”

Organ-tuning records could be useful for climate studies, said Neil Macdonald, a professor of geography at the University of Liverpool. “As somebody that’s worked on a lot of historical records of climate and weather, I’ve never come across this,” he said. “I was fascinated.”

It is possible that summer temperatures in churches could be influenced by factors besides climate breakdown, he noted – perhaps some churches were ventilated more frequently in years gone by, for example.

Organ tuners care about temperature because it affects the expansion and contraction of materials such as wood and metal, commonly used in organs, Scott said.

Humidity plays a role, too. One remark left by a tuner and noted by the researchers relates to a church organ in Nottingham. Part of the instrument appeared damaged and more difficult to tune than last time. “Weather? Misty,” the tuner wrote.

While many churches are large, difficult-to-heat stone buildings – making them refuges for some during heatwaves – hot summer weather can still trouble an organ. A change of just one degree celsius may alter the pitch of one of these instruments by 0.8 hertz, said Scott.

That means if an organ is tuned at 16C, for example, and then the temperature later rises to 20C, the notes the instrument produces can be perceptibly different.

Scott’s company has tuned organs all over the world, including in Nigeria, Malaysia and India. In hot countries, keeping an organ in tune is already challenging – climate breakdown threatens to make it harder still. And besides weather, powerful heating systems in churches can affect pipe organs even more profoundly, he added.

Xing said he and his colleagues hoped to analyse more organ-tuning book data and he urged anyone who owned such records to contact him. “If we can find older ones, it would be fascinating,” he said. “I hope people realise the value of tuning books.”

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What was your skywatching highlight of 2025? A comet becoming visible to the naked eye? Mars disappearing behind the moon? Or did you glimpse a “blood moon” total lunar eclipse and see the northern lights at last?

Here’s what happened in the skies in 2025, in spectacular images.

1. A Wolf Moon “eats” Mars

Mars rises out of a lunar occultation from Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona on Jan. 13, 2025. (Image credit: KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. Winsky & A. Sorensen (Image credit: J. Winsky & M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab))

Mars comes to a bright opposition in Earth’s sky only once every 26 months. But just before its big day came on Jan. 15, it grabbed skywatchers’ attention when it crossed paths with the moon. North America had a ringside seat to the full Wolf Moon’s occultation of the Red Planet, which happens just once every 14 years from a specific place on Earth’s surface.

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Read more: Mars hides behind the full Wolf Moon in gorgeous photos from around the world

2. A “great comet” appears

Comet C/2024 G3 (Atlas) appears in the sky over a rural area near Firmat, Argentina, on Jan. 20, 2025. (Image credit: Patricio Murphy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images))

If you don’t remember 2025’s “great comet,” it’s probably because you’re in the Northern Hemisphere. Back in mid- to late January, Comet 2024 G3 (ATLAS) made a close pass of the sun before sprouting a bright, structured tail that delighted astrophotographers south of the equator. The comet even became bright enough to be visible in the daytime with the naked eye.

Read more: Why Comet G3 (ATLAS) will be ‘remembered as the Great Comet of 2025’ (photos)

3. “Blue Ghost” lands on the moon

Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 landed on the moon on March 2, 2025. (Image credit: Firefly Aerospace)

After launching atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in January, Texas-based Firefly Aerospace successfully landed its Blue Ghost spacecraft on the moon’s 300-mile-wide (500 kilometers) Mare Crisium (“Sea of Crises”) basin in early March, becoming the second private spacecraft ever to soft-land on the moon. The company shared a spectacular video showing Blue Ghost’s descent and spectacular landing, complete with its own long lunar shadow.

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Read more: Touch down on the moon with private Blue Ghost lander in this amazing video

4. A star trail is visible from orbit

NASA astronaut Don Pettit captured this long-exposure view showing Earth and stars as intense streaks over time, as seen from the International Space Station. (Image credit: NASA/Don Pettit and Babak Tafreshi via X)

Between September 2024 and April 2025, NASA astronaut Don Pettit — famed for his pioneering work in astrophotography from orbit — conducted his third mission on the International Space Station. In collaboration with astrophotographer Babak Tafreshi of The World at Night on the ground, Pettit took the art form to another level, capturing dozens of mesmerizing star trails.

Read more: Astronaut takes a mind-bending trip over Earth beneath star trails: Space photo of the day

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5. A “blood moon” total lunar eclipse captivates skywatchers

Petr Horálek, NOIRLab’s photo ambassador, captured a total lunar eclipse from the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. (Image credit: CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/P. Horálek (Institute of Physics in Opava))

The first total lunar eclipse in three years delighted skywatchers on March 13-14, 2025, when a full Worm Moon crept through Earth’s central shadow in space for 65 minutes, making the lunar surface appear reddish-orange from our perspective on Earth. The event, visible from Earth’s nightside, was captured with a moonbow from Kentucky and with the Milky Way from Chile. Another lunar eclipse on Sept. 7-8 made for some spectacular photos, including one taken over Egypt’s White Desert.

Read more: Total lunar eclipse March 2025: Best photos of the “Blood Worm Moon”

6. Vapor tracers appear inside auroras

Vapor tracers light up the atmosphere over the Arctic Ocean as seen from Utqiagvik, Alaska, on March 25, 2025. (Image credit: AWESOME Mission)

Just as an aurora substorm erupted, two NASA sounding rockets poised for launch at Alaska’s Poker Flat Research Range suddenly went skyward, releasing colorful vapor tracers within the aurora borealis, or northern lights. As part of the AWESOME mission, vapor tracers were imaged using cameras across northern Alaska to track winds, particle flows and magnetic changes during the outburst.

Read more: NASA launches rockets into auroras, creating breathtaking lights in Alaskan skies (photos)

7. Perseids blast through moonlight

A meteor streaks across the sky over Spruce Knob, West Virginia, on Aug. 3, 2025. (Image credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

It may be the Northern Hemisphere’s favorite annual meteor shower, but the Perseids weren’t a classic in 2025, as they were marred by an 84%-illuminated crescent moon. However, before the peak night of the Perseid meteor shower on Aug. 12-13, there was a short window of darkness, during which a few bright meteors were seen in the predawn hours. About 10 days before the peak night, NASA photographer Bill Ingalls took this long exposure of a Perseid meteor in Spruce Knob, West Virginia.

Read more: Perseid meteor shower 2025 outshines moon to put on a spectacular show (photos)

8. An interstellar comet grows a tail

A deep image of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS by the Gemini South Telescope in Chile. (Image credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/Shadow the Scientist. Image Processing: J. Miller & M. Rodriguez (International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab)/T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF NOIRLab)/M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab).)

For comet hunters, 2025 was a landmark year, primarily because it saw the discovery of the third interstellar object ever to visit our solar system. Comet 3I/ATLAS, as it came to be known, followed in the wake of ‘Oumuamua (1I/2017 U1) in 2017 and 2I/Borisov in 2019. In late August, astronomers using the Gemini South telescope in Chile glimpsed the tail of the interstellar interloper.

Read more: Scientists capture interstellar invader comet 3I/ATLAS growing a tail

9. Solar maximum continues to deliver

The great aurora of June 1, 2025. (Image credit: VW Pics /Getty Images)

Following an incredible year in 2024, it was likely that 2025 would experience some significant geomagnetic activity, thanks to solar maximum, the peak of the 11-year solar cycle. Observers in the right place at the right time on April 14-15, June 1, June 17 and Sept. 2 (and many other dates) enjoyed spectacular auroras as G4 geomagnetic storms produced auroras at low latitudes.

Read more: Severe G4 geomagnetic storm sparks northern lights across US and beyond (photos)

10. Comet Lemmon ripens

Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) with a glowing green coma and visible tail as seen from Málaga, Spain, on Oct. 1, 2025. (Image credit: Javier Zayas Photography/Getty Images)

What are the chances of a naked-eye comet becoming visible on the same night as the peak of the Orionid meteor shower? Although it was only on the cusp of naked-eye visibility — and was visible only to astrophotographers in the Northern Hemisphere — Comet Lemmon (C/2025 A6) put on a show in mid- to late October. A surprise companion, Comet C/2025 R2 (SWAN), appeared in telescope images on Sept. 10. But although it was initially bright, it never got as luminous as Lemmon.

Read more: Astrophotographers capture dazzling new views of Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) as it brightens for October skies

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QUICK FACTS

Name: Holy Crib

What it is: Five pieces of sycamore wood

Where it is from: Jerusalem

When it was made: Circa 4 to 6 B.C.

In the 640s, Sophronius, the patriarch of Jerusalem, sent several unassuming wooden slats to Rome for safekeeping after the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem. Sophronius asked Pope Theodore I to protect the pieces of wood, which he said were the remains of the Holy Crib — Jesus’ manger.

Today, five pieces of wood from the manger are preserved in a gold, silver and glass reliquary in a crypt chapel in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. The reliquary was commissioned by Pope Pius IX in 1802, when it replaced an older urn that was stolen by Napoleon’s troops in the late 1700s. (The troops left the wood behind in the basilica.)

According to Monsignor Piero Marini, who is the guardian of the Holy Crib, four of the wooden slats once formed two X’s, while the fifth slat ran down the middle to hold them together. Wooden mangers in the late first century B.C. would have been topped with straw for animals to eat. But this particular manger is much more significant: It is said to have once held the baby Jesus.

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The Gospel of Luke mentions that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Because there was nowhere for Mary and Joseph to stay in town, the newborn Jesus was laid in a manger. Many biblical scholars believe that Jesus was born between 6 and 4 B.C. And while his birth is celebrated on Dec. 25 every year, scholars are unsure of his exact birth date.

The first historical mention of the manger pieces comes from Origen, an early Christian scholar, who wrote in A.D. 220 that the crib was preserved in Bethlehem, according to Marini. Then, around A.D. 400, St. Jerome discussed the Holy Crib and many people’s pilgrimages to it in the Grotto of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Ever since the wood pieces made their way to Rome in the seventh century, the manger has remained in Santa Maria Maggiore.

In 1894, abbot Giuseppe Cozza-Luzi was the first to study the remains of the Holy Crib. His examination revealed that there are two longer pieces of wood and three shorter pieces — ranging from about 25 to 33.5 inches (64 to 85 centimeters) in length — and that all of them had been damaged over time. Several of the wooden pieces also had holes and traces of metal, suggesting they had once been constructed into a manger.

MORE ASTONISHING ARTIFACTS

Based on a microscopic analysis of a small piece of wood that had been removed in the 1600s, Cozza-Luzi concluded that the wood was a kind of hard maple, possibly sycamore. The type of wood, the form of the slats, and the evidence of construction — along with historical references — all suggested to him that the Holy Crib remains were part of an authentic ancient manger from the Jerusalem area.

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In 2019, experts restored the wooden slats, and Pope Francis took the opportunity to give a small piece of the crib back to the Holy Land, with a plaque that read “Ex cunis Iesu Infantis,” meaning “From the crib of the Infant Jesus.”

Each year, many Christians visit the Holy Crib during the annual Christmas Eve mass at midnight at Santa Maria Maggiore, which is also called Santa Maria ad Praesepe (St. Mary of the Crib) and the “Bethlehem of the West” for its association with Mary and her baby’s manger.

For more stunning archaeological discoveries, check out our Astonishing Artifacts archives.

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The Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin would no doubt have understood and even appreciated the latest attack by the Trump administration on climate researchers and their work.

The National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, is to be dismantled after more than 50 years at the forefront of global research on climate science and monitoring.

This is the latest step in the administration’s climate Lysenkoism and its relentless purge of climate researchers who refuse to be co-opted into its quest for American energy dominance though fossil fuels.

Stalin’s embrace of the work of Trofim Denisovitch Lysenko, who wrongly believed that wheat could inherit characteristics acquired by previous generations, underpinned policies that failed to prevent crop failures and millions of deaths from famine during the 1930s.

Scientists who opposed Lysenkoism were denounced, fired, imprisoned and even executed. While Trump has not gone as far as Stalin, his administration’s persecution of climate researchers could ultimately lead to many millions of deaths from increases in extreme weather and sea level rise in the United States and across the world.

Six years ago, we warned in an op-ed for the Guardian of the dangers of climate Lysenkoism during Trump’s first presidential term. Little did we know that there would be a second term and an even more extreme war against scientific reality.

The closure of NCAR was announced on X, the Trump administration’s preferred propaganda platform, by Russell Vought, the director of the office of management and budget.

He laughably described NCAR as “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country”, but it is transparently part of the Trump administration’s promotion of wilful ignorance about climate change.

We both have direct experience of the deep expertise and careful methodology of the many generations of scientists who have worked at NCAR, a stark contrast with the blatant mischaracterisation offered by Vought.

He is the architect of climate Lysenkoism during Trump’s second term, and Vought laid out his plans to eliminate all governmental knowledge and understanding of climate change in his Project 2025 manifesto during the presidential campaign.

Vought was also behind the Trump budget proposal earlier this year that proposed to end funding for most government laboratories and institutions that carry out any work related to climate change.

Fortunately, Congress rejected most of the funding cuts in the administration’s budget, but Vought will no doubt try again next year as part of the administration’s promotion of climate Lysenkoism.

While it is difficult to understand the workings of Donald Trump’s mind, his administration’s pretence that climate change does not exist is in line with his ambition to make the United States and the rest of the world more dependent on American oil, gas and coal.

Trump’s presidential campaign received at least $75m from oil and gas interests, according to media reports, and he promised to repay their investments through his administration’s support for more exploration and production.

The administration’s war on climate researchers helps to shield oil and gas executives from criticism of the damage that their industry is causing.

We are both seeing first-hand the impact of this at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in New Orleans, where scientists usually gather to discuss the latest advancements in climate research.

This year, there are far fewer climate scientists taking part, with many federally funded researchers having lost their jobs or had their budgets slashed.

However, there are signs that the administration’s attempt to promote a bogus version of climate science is not advancing quite as smoothly as they’d hoped.

In July, the Department of Energy published a ludicrous report that attempted to present a revisionist account of established climate science.

The report, called A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the US Climate, was commissioned by Chris Wright, the former head of oil and gas company Liberty Energy, whom Donald Trump selected to be energy secretary and chief propagandist.

The report was written by five scientists who were obviously selected to produce a version of climate science that was aligned with the administration’s political agenda.

It was clearly intended to support an attempt by the Environmental Protection Agency, launched on the same day, to overturn the supreme court’s so-called endangerment finding, which requires the government to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

However, a group of more than 85 climate scientists comprehensively debunked Wright’s report in September, exposing numerous fundamental errors and falsehoods. They showed that the Department of Energy report was a blatant example of policy-based evidence-making.

In addition, the highly respected and authoritative National Academy of Sciences published its own assessment in September that concluded “the evidence for current and future harm to human health and welfare created by human-caused GHGs [greenhouse gases] is beyond scientific dispute”.

It is now widely expected that the comprehensive demolition of Wright’s report means the Environmental Protection Agency will drop references to the science when it publishes in the new year its updated case for overturning the endangerment finding.

Sadly, this setback is unlikely to stop the Trump administration’s assault on researchers, and its Soviet-style campaign to prevent Americans and the rest of the world from knowing the truth about climate change.

The Trump administration continues to act as if the story of the ransacking of the library of Alexandria is a playbook instead of a cautionary tale.

• Professor Michael Mann is the presidential distinguished professor and director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania, and co-author with Peter Hotez of Science Under Siege; Bob Ward is policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science

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The seventh-ever mission of Japan’s H3 rocket did not go according to plan.

The H3 launched from Tanegashima Space Center on Sunday (Dec. 21) at 8:51 p.m. EST (0151 GMT and 10:51 a.m. local Japan time on Dec. 22), carrying a navigation satellite known as Michibiki 5, or QZS-5, aloft.

“However, the second stage engine’s second ignition failed to start normally and shut down prematurely,” officials with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said in a statement early Monay morning (Dec. 22). “As a result, QZS-5 could not be put into the planned orbit, and the launch failed.”

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The H3 rises into the sky on Dec. 21, 2025. (Image credit: JAXA)

The 10,580-pound (4,800 kilograms) Michibiki 5 was supposed to be part of Japan’s homegrown Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS), a navigation network in geosynchronous orbit high above Earth.

“This system is compatible with GPS satellites and can be utilized with them in an integrated fashion,” Japanese officials wrote in a description of the QZSS project.

“QZSW can be used even in the Asia-Oceania regions with longitudes close to Japan, so its usage will be expanded to other countries in these regions as well,” they added.

The first QZSS satellite, a pathfinder, launched in September 2010. The system currently consists of four operational spacecraft, but Japan wants it to grow, as Sunday’s unsuccessful launch shows. Indeed, the network will eventually consist of 11 spacecraft, if all goes according to plan.

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The two-stage H3 rocket was developed by JAXA and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. It’s the successor to the H-2A, a workhorse launcher that retired in June after a quarter-century of orbital service.

The H3 failed during its debut launch in March 2023 but bounced back with five consecutive successes — until Sunday night. JAXA has set up a task force headed by agency chief Hiroshi Yamakawa to help get to the bottom of the Michibiki 5 launch anomaly.

“We would like to express our deepest apology to many people and entities, particularly those related to the QZS-5, local organizations and the public, who had high expectations for this project,” JAXA officials wrote in Monday morning’s update.

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