This is the moment Vienna gets a rare White Christmas – with snow falling and settling on the ground on Christmas Eve for the first time since 2012.
The wintry scenes were filmed in Vienna, the capital of Austria, on Wednesday, 24th December, as flakes drifted down through the morning and began sticking in parts of the city, including the historic centre.
The snowfall is expected to continue into the afternoon, with the city’s winter service and motorway operator ASFINAG deployed to keep roads moving as commuters and last-minute shoppers headed out for Christmas.
A yellow snow-and-ice warning was also in place for Innere Stadt, with forecasters cautioning that up to five centimetres (1.9 inches) of fresh snow could fall and make pavements and roads slippery.
In Austria, the “white Christmas” question comes with a technical definition: GeoSphere Austria counts it as white when there is a snow cover of at least one centimetre across more than half of the observation area at 7am on 24th December.
The festive dusting also taps into an annual obsession far beyond Austria. In Britain, bookmakers publish White Christmas odds every year as punters bet on which places will see snow on Christmas Day – even though the UK’s traditional “official” rule is famously loose and can be triggered by a single snowflake falling anywhere in the country.
Around the world on Christmas Eve, the picture was mixed: London stayed mostly cloudy but snow-free. And New York was dry and relatively mild – while Moscow saw light snow and Zurich also reported wintry showers.
In the US, Washington D.C. even logged a few snowflakes in a rain-snow mix earlier in the week.
And in Vienna, the snowfall did not just transform the streets – it also delivered picture-perfect zoo footage.
At Schonbrunn Zoo, the video shows penguins bobbing and darting through their pool as snow falls around the enclosure. With the water rippling as they plunge and resurface like torpedoes in tuxedos.
But the undisputed scene-stealer is a tiger, sprawled on a snow-covered wooden platform. Wrapped in his thick winter fur – blinking slowly and yawning beneath trees coated in white, as if the whole festive fuss is beneath him.
Schnobrunn Zoo, set in the grounds of the Schonbrunn Palace complex, is the world’s oldest zoo, founded in 1752.
To find out more about the author, editor or agency that supplied this story – please click below. Story By: Michael Leidig, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Newsflash
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