If you're dreaming of a white Christmas this year, you will have to travel far away from North Carolina to see one.  That is typically the case though.  The average chance for a white Christmas in North Carolina outside the mountains is less than 5%.

It has happened here before though.  Just ask anyone that lived in southeastern North Carolina on Christmas Day 1989.  A rare late December snowstorm produced up to 20 inches of snow just north of Wilmington from December 22 through 24, 1989.  It was the all time record snowfall for much of southeastern North Carolina.  The heaviest snow was confined to near the coast.  Raleigh only saw a trace of snow with that storm.  Charlotte and Greensboro did not see any.

Wilmington hit its all time record low temperatures just after the storm.  The temperature dropped to 0 on Christmas morning.

Western North Carolina has seen a white Christmas more recently than 1989.  A winter storm that started on Christmas Day 2010 produced six to twelve inches of snow in the foothills and the mountains.  That same storm then blanketed the Triangle and Sandhills with similar snow totals on the day after Christmas.