Most of Palestine enjoys a Mediterranean climate and has abundant sunshine throughout the year, with long hot summers and mild winters.
The most unpleasant visitor is the hot dry wind which occurs mainly at the beginning and at the end of each summer, known generally throughout the region as the khamsin, and locally in Israel as the sharav.
Typically, however, the winters are not cold, and over most of the country, snow is virtually unknown.
One particular Palestinian winter however has attracted much attention. It is the one when "Joseph went up from Galilee into Judea to the town of David that is called Bethlehem. And it came to pass that whilst they were there, Mary completed the days of her delivery and brought forth her first-born son; and she swathed him round and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn."
The traditional artistic depiction of this scene shows the events taking place in very cold weather and the ground everywhere is thickly covered with snow. Only the warm breath of the ox and ass provides sufficient heat to ensure the survival of the new-born child.
In Gerald Manley Hopkins's quite inimitable words:
Hailropes hustle and grind their Heavengravel? wolf snow, worlds of it wind there.
Is that really how it was? We can never know for sure, of course, but climatology suggests that conditions are likely to have been less severe than those commonly portrayed. Bethlehem is a few miles south of Jerusalem, and about 1500 ft above sea level, so it is rather cooler than regions nearer the coast.
Winter rainfall can be heavy when it comes, but it falls only on a limited number of days, so even in winter time most days are bright and sunny. The nights can indeed be very chilly, and snow does come now and then - but it is a very unusual event.
Perhaps the climate of the Middle East has changed in the past 2000 years. In addressing this question, climatologists have noted that both the date and the vine flourished in the region two millenniums ago. The date cannot ripen its fruit if the mean annual temperature is below 21
Celsius, while the vine cannot abide an average temperature above 22C.
It follows that their co-existence requires an average annual temperature of about 21 C, very close to the value the region experiences today. Therefore it seems that mutatis mutandis, we can apply Gerald Manley Hopkins's verdict to many artistic portrayals of the stable scene:
And you were a liar, O blue March day!