Is Bend seeing more or less snow than it used to?

If you’ve been dreaming of a white Christmas, there are just 13 days left to get some in-town snow.

But is this weather normal for December?

On Wednesday, NewsChannel 21 looked back at the last 20 years of snowfall to find out.

The answer is: Not necessarily. December snowfall from 1997 to 2017 shows all sorts of varied amounts.

In December of 2012, Bend received eight inches — and in 1998, only one.

Climate experts say the rise and fall of snowfall totals from year to year are not necessarily good indicators for climate change.

But NewsChannel 21 spoke with Mike James, who has been working for the Oregon Department of Transportation for nearly 30 years, now as a transportation maintenance specialist, to find out what he remembers about snow plowing back then.

“Yeah, I think every once in a while, we’ll have one of those years that we go, ‘Wow, that was a good winter,’ and the old timers will say, ‘Well ,that’s the way it used to be,'” James said. “So those years of plowing all the snow down the center of Third Street and having dump trucks pull it out at night — we don’t have them like we used to.”

James also said that as Central Oregon’s population has grown and ODOT’s staff has shrunk, the work has changed, in large part due to the increase in traffic. But he said there’s one thing he’s definitely happy about, and that’s the use of chemical ice melt.

“Some people don’t like the mag chloride, but personally I do, because I don’t pull as many bodies out of cars if it’s wet out, instead of icy. We don’t have the wrecks,” James said.

ODOT said it has not required less sand, cinders or equipment because of any sort of decrease in snowfall. Most changes the agency has made are due to the growing population and more roads.