Snow in South Bend (hotel, homes, living in)

[Signora]

I keep reading about how it snows so much in South Bend because it is located in the snow belt. I am currently living in Central WI where it snows and snows and does not melt completely until spring.

Is it like that in South Bend or are there large snow storms which then melt before the next large snow storm? Is it as cold there? How long are the winters generally?

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by Signora

I keep reading about how it snows so much in South Bend because it is located in the snow belt. I am currently living in Central WI where it snows and snows and does not melt completely until spring.

Is it like that in South Bend or are there large snow storms which then melt before the next large snow storm? Is it as cold there? How long are the winters generally?

South Bend is in the "Michiana snowbelt." South Bend gets a lot of lake effect snow off of Lake Michigan. In terms of temperatures, South Bend is quite a bit milder compared to Wisconsin in the winter. South Bend averages between 65-75 inches of snow per winter season.

[twiggers]

Yes, we average a lot of know; however, a lot of the time it does melt and then reappear. I was born and raised in Canada (Manitoba) which has winters similar to Wisconsin, and I can definitely tell you that South Bend winters are nothing compared to WI, MN, ND, Canada.

Average temps in the winter hover in the 20s, and occasionally we'll get some cold snaps where we are in the negatives. It's easy to get days in the 30s and 40s in December.


Snow typically starts falling sometime in November/December, but doesn't really stick around until mid-January.

I would say winter starts in Nov/Dec and ends in March.

Definitely not as bad as WI :-)

[domergurl]

The South Bend area has had a horrible winter so far this year. It really varies year to year ... this year has been really icy.

[jbbean]

I was born and raised here. Similar to Wisconsin, We can get large amounts of snow and it can get
very cold [as we've all seen lately] Everything just depends on what's happening around Lake Michigan

[jbbean]

Twiggers,
It normally continues to snow here til the 2nd or 3rd week of April.
Last year it was still cold in May

[thotful1]

When I moved to South Bend a few years back, I interviewed for the job in August. I arrived in town, stayed at the nice river-side hotel there (a Hilton maybe? It has a sushi bar in it). It was sunny and warm for the week and weekend I stayed in town. I later took the job. To my surprise I found out that SB has about 300+ days of overcast a year. A far cry from southern California where I came from! It was monumentally depressing.

I liked Mishawauka where I actually lived, right next door to SB, but the lake-effect snows were horrible there as well. You go to bed with no snow on the ground, and wake up to 24" of heavy wet snow, all to be shoveled or plowed before you could get your car out of the garage to go to work.

I moved out of there within a year. Too bad; I liked the Amish communities east of there and all the people I met were mid-west friendly. (The pork at the meat markets was also amazing, BTW. Oh, and what's that little speciality Italian grocery store in SB? It looks like it used to be a regular supermarket? What great berry and apple pies!).

Gosh; I'm getting a bit homesick. And then I remember the snow and general "grey" skies...