Comparing Snowfall Around The Country

As many of you know, February is our "historical" snowiest month.  The current 30 year average (1980-81 through 2009-10) paints February as getting about six and a half inches of snow although that average will increase when the new averages are released later this year thanks to February 2010's 51.5" of snowmg.   February is not the snowiest month everywhere though...

I took Syracuse (lake effect snow), Denver, Minneapolis, Raleigh (south), and Boston as a sense to compare five other metropolitan areas around the country to see how their snowfall compares from month-to-month.   Granted, some places will see a lot more snow than others and if you like snow, Syracuse it the place you want to move to as they average over one hundred inches of snow each winter.  Much of that is due to its location near Lake Ontario and January is their snowiest month on average -- thirty inches fall, as much as we picked up in the Blizzard of '96.

Nationally, there are a couple of months that seem to be the "gold standard" for snowiest months -- January (northern climates like Boston, Minneapolis plus the lake effect towns, plus southern cities like Raleigh) or March (Denver, the Central Rockies and the High Plains, some cities in the Midwest).   February tends to be the month for I-95 from Washington on north as we tend to get our best and most significant chances of snow from late January through mid February.

A couple of towns jackpot at odd times, however.  Lander, WY (not listed above) gets their highest snowfall on average in April (20") as storm systems work through the Rockies and dump their snows on higher elevation cities.  Erie's highest snowfall average is in December (24") -- that is due to Lake Erie, which freezes more commonly in the winter compared to Lake Ontario.   If we include Alaska in the discussion, Fairbanks sees its highest snowfall in November as the winter months are a touch less snowy and storm systems pass a bit farther south.

More:  Snowfall averages by city