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© Elizabeth Flores, Star Tribune
The on-again, off-again flirting with a December snowfall record in the Twin Cities is back on:

It's definitely a record, according to the National Weather Service. Up to 6 inches of snow fell overnight and pushed the monthly total to 33.4 inches at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. The previous December record was 33.2 inches, set in 1969. The record was briefly in doubt because of a small data error at the weather service, which maintains records at the airport as well as its Chanhassen office.

Totals from the latest snowfall ranged from 3 to 6 inches in the metro area, according to the Weather Service, with 3 inches in Burnsville, 4 in Edina, 5 in St. Paul and 6 in Inver Grove Heights.

The snow made roads slick. Even with traffic lighter because of the holiday, the Minnesota State Patrol reported 82 crashes in the metro area, 9 of them with injuries, between midnight and 10 a.m. Friday.

The patrol also reported 134 vehicle spinouts or vehicles off the road. Another 34 crashes with 3 injuries happened elsewhere in the state, according to state patrol spokesman Lt. Eric Roeske.

Beyond the metro area, the Weather Service reported 6 inches of new snow in Paynesville and 6.5 in Red Wing.

As for the rest of Christmas Eve in the Twin Cities, weather service forecaster Tony Zaleski said the snow has "fizzled" and the high will top out around 28 degrees. The overnight low is forecast to be about 15 with winds of 5 to 10 miles per hour. Christmas Day will be mostly cloudy, with scattered flurries and highs around 20.

Clueing in the rest of the nation to what Twin Citians already know, the Weather Channel is offering one illustration to prove it snows here: Among major U.S. airports in the Lower 48, only Denver typically picks up more snow each season than Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

The Weather Channel ranked the worst airports for weather, placing MSP fourth because of the snow. The top three are New York (Newark, JFK and LaGuardia), Detroit and Chicago.

Over on Twitter, Minnesotans are predicting what will happen if it snows more. Join in at twitter.com/search?q=%23ifitsnowsmore.

In the rest of the country, a more rare white Christmas is in store for such unconventional locales as Nashville and Atlanta.

The storm was expected to crawl south into Tennessee on Saturday, then possibly move north on Sunday. Winter-weather advisories were in effect from North Dakota -- yes, through Minnesota -- and into Kentucky.

"People that are going to Grandma's house," warned Bobby Boyd, a Weather Service meteorologist in Nashville, "need to get going."

In Georgia, the Weather Service said 1 to 3 inches of snow could fall across metro Atlanta on Saturday. But it said there was still uncertainty about the storm's path, and that any deviation could affect the total amounts. If the forecast holds, it would be the first time since 1993 that snow fell on Christmas in Atlanta, the Weather Service said. The last time there was measurable snowfall on Christmas Day was in 1882, when a third of an inch of snow blanketed the city.