Snow can be a beautiful nuisance or a major danger to cities and towns across the country this winter – some more than others.
But which locations typically get the most snow?
USA TODAY looked at weather records for small towns and major cities to find some of the snowiest locations in the country. As stated in the book “Extreme Weather” by weather historian Christopher Burt, “It is not always clear which city can claim to be the snowiest because there are different ways of defining a city and different places inside or outside the city to measure snowfall.”
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In general, the snowiest cities in the United States are in western New York, while the snowiest parts of the United States are the mountains of the West and Alaska.
As for unoccupied locations, Burt said the snowiest places on record are probably somewhere in Alaska's coastal mountains, “but there are no weather stations there to record what could amount to more than 1,000 inches (83 feet) of annual snowfall.” “.
Western New York is the epicenter of snow
For large cities with populations of at least 100,000, three cities in Western New York receive the snowiest award, according to National Weather Service data:
∎ Syracuse, New York ∎ Rochester, New York ∎ Buffalo, New York
Thanks primarily to lake-related snow, the snowiest major city in the United States is Syracuse, New York, which gets about 11 feet of snow in the winter, the National Weather Service said. It is also one of the rainiest and cloudiest cities in the country. Other cities in Western New York, such as Rochester and Buffalo, average about 9 feet per year, again due to lake effect.
All three areas are located in traditional lake-effect snowbelts, with cold winds moving from the west across the relatively warm Great Lakes, the Old Farmer's Almanac reported.
The snowiest small towns and uninhabited locations
As for small cities, the snowiest is Valdez, Alaska, (population about 4,000), according to National Weather Service data. Valdez picks up an unimaginable 23 feet of snow every year.
Valdez received 180 inches of snow in just one month, said Jonathan Erdman, a meteorologist at Weather.com. That's nearly 5 times Chicago's average annual snowfall.
In the Lower 48, Truckee, California, in the Sierra Nevada, is one of the snowiest areas. This small town gets about 16 feet of snow every year.
As for the unoccupied sites that scientists monitor, Mount Rainier in Washington state averages about 56 feet of snow in the winter, one of the highest annual totals in the world.
Lake effect snow machine
When snow piles up in places like Syracuse or Buffalo in western New York or Marquette in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, people start talking about the “lake effect snow machine.” But what exactly is lake ice? How does that happen?
Lake effect snow, which can last only a few minutes to several days, develops from tight bands of clouds that form when cold, dry Arctic air passes over a large, relatively temperate lake.
As cold air passes over the unfrozen, “warm” waters of the Great Lakes, warmth and moisture move into the lower part of the atmosphere, the National Weather Service says. The air rises, and clouds form and grow in narrow bands that produce 2 to 3 inches of snow per hour or more.
This snow usually only occurs in the fall or early winter, before the lakes freeze. (But if the lakes do not freeze, lake-shaped snowfall may occur throughout the winter and into the spring.)
“The snowfall off the Great Lakes is among the heaviest snowfalls in the world,” Jonathan Erdman, a meteorologist with Weather.com, said in an online report.
One of the most notable lake-triggered snowfalls in New York State occurred over a 10-day period from February 3 to 12, 2007, when 141 inches (11.75 feet) of snow was measured in Redfield, New Jersey. York City, about 50 miles northeast of Syracuse, Erdmann said.
Western mountains produce world-class snowfall
For huge snowfall totals in mainly uninhabited locations, head west:
“Some of the heaviest seasonal snowfall totals in the United States and the world were recorded in the Western mountains of the (lower 48 states),” according to an article in National Weather Digest. “Of particular note are the amounts that fell in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State, where the annual average exceeds 600 inches (50 feet) on leeward slopes.”
The world record for single-season snowfall (95 feet) was set on Mount Baker in the Cascades during the winter of 1998-1999.
The heavy snowfall rates there are the result of several factors, the article says: “Winter is naturally the wettest season as the planetary cycle expands from west to east toward the south and increases in speed, with storms hitting the Pacific Northwest every few days.
“Moisture-laden air, after crossing the Pacific Ocean, is forced up the Cascade Mountain Range, producing heavy rainfall.”
