Get a White Christmas and Prosperous New Year -- with Data

There are plenty of ways that algorithms are impacting your winter holidays. Maybe you are watching the weather forecast to figure out the best time to make a dash to the mall. Perhaps you got gift recommendations from an online retail site. Then that online store is using a complex logistics system to ensure your packages are shipped to you and arrive before the holiday. Maybe the traditional retailer you visited used machine learning to decide what inventory to stock -- just the right number of Imaginext Fisher-Price Super Friends Transforming Batmobile R/C (or maybe they weren't able to stock enough of these). Perhaps you are using a navigation app on your phone to figure out how to get through the traffic congestion faster and just get away from these crowds.

Machine learning is all around us, especially as consumers.

Here's one more way you can use machine learning this holiday season. The U.S. Department of Commerce has released a map of the continental U.S. showing the likelihood of having a white Christmas in any geography in the country. So if you are feeling less than festive but know that a little snow will help you conjure those holiday spirits, this map will tell you where you likely need to go.

Here are the likeliest places: Minnesota, Maine, Upstate New York, the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, just about anywhere in Idaho, and the Rockies or the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Read the rest of the article on InfomationWeek.