Winter Snowfall in USA Today Snowiest Cities and Towns
Some cities and towns are more at risk from snow this winter than others.
What are the Snowiest locations?
USA TODAY found some of the nation’s snowiest places by reviewing weather records. Weather historian Christopher Burt writes in his book “Extreme Weather” that it’s not always clear which city is the snowiest since different definitions of a city and measurements of snowfall occur at different places within or just outside.
West New York has the snowiest cities, while Alaska and the mountains in the West have the snowiest parts of the U.S.
A place in Alaska that receives more than 1,000 inches (83 feet) of snowfall annually would probably be an uninhabited location, according to Burt.
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Winter is a big deal in Western New York
National Weather Service data show that three big cities with at least 100,000 residents are the snowiest:
- New York City, Syracuse
- New York City, Rochester
- New York City, Buffalo
A major reason for Syracuse, New York’s snowy status is lake-effect snow, according to the National Weather Service.
In addition to being one of the nation’s rainiest cities, it is also one of the cloudiest. Again, because of the lake effect, Rochester and Buffalo average 9 feet of snow per year.
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Uninhabited Small Towns and Snowiest Areas
Small towns with just a few thousand people are particularly snowy, such as Valdez, Alaska (pop. 4,000). Every year, Valdez receives 23 feet of snow.
Meteorologist Jonathan Erdman noted that Valdez once received 180 inches of snow in just one month. Almost five times as much snow falls in Chicago each year.
Truckee, California, in the Sierra Nevada, has the highest snowfall in the Lower 48. Snowfall in that small town is about 16 feet per year.
One of the world’s highest snowfall totals is on Mount Rainier in Washington state, which averages about 56 feet of snow per winter.
Snow Machine with lake Effect
Lake-effect snow causes snow to pile up in places like Syracuse or Buffalo in western New York or Marquette in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. But what, exactly, is it? What causes it?
Ice storms develop over large, relatively mild lakes when cold, dry arctic air passes over large, relatively mild bodies of water.
Heat and moisture are transferred into the lower atmosphere as the cold air passes over the unfrozen and “warm” waters of the Great Lakes. A narrow band of clouds forms and grows, causing a 2 to 3 inch snowfall per hour.
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Snowfall Records Are Set in the Western Mountains
Travel west for huge snowfall totals in mainly uninhabited areas: National Weather Digest reports some of the heaviest snowfall records in the western mountains of the lower 48 states.
In Washington’s Cascade Mountains, average annual rainfall exceeds 600 inches (50 feet) on windward slopes. Winter 1998-99 witnessed the largest snowfall on Mount Baker (95 feet) in the Cascades.
Winter is naturally the rainiest season as the west-to-east planetary circulation expands southward and increases in speed.
Storms frequently strike the Pacific Northwest during the winter.” The Cascade Range is inundated with precipitation as moist air ascends the Pacific.
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