Places in the United States where snow is present for most of a winter. (live, county)

[Chicago60614]

Originally Posted by elchevere

Buffalo.

Actually, many times in Chicago it is too cold for snow.

That's a saying I hear a lot, but it's not actually that easy. For instance Buffalo has lower temps in January than Chicago. Chicago just tends to get its cold air masses from up in Canada which are much drier and don't produce a lot of snow. Buffalo gets the lake effect coming in and that's where they get their snow.

[Chicago60614]

Originally Posted by WestPreussen

There is quite often misconception that Europe is cold continent but it is actually warm continent and there is barely snow here in winters except for very northern part of it. As I have never been to United States I am curious if it is the same there with exception of Alaska of course. So in northern states or places like Boston, New York, Chicago is snow present for longer periods of time like most of the winter or is it rare and just reoccuring for short periods of time?

I can speak for Chicago having been here for decades. Snow doesn't stick around for much more than a week usually, and the snows in Chicago are much smaller amounts, so you may get a few inches to cover things and brush it off or shovel it and the piles where you dumped it will stick around for a week or two, but usually the sidewalks and the streets are cleared most of the winter.

People tend to REMEMBER the times that there was snow all over the ground blocking them and annoying them, but they don't really remember the other 75% of the time it was clear and normal. That's why you hear people say things like "oh there's snow on the ground for MONTHS on end, it's awful". In reality you might get snow on the ground for a week or so that really gets to you, but then it's gone.

It varies a lot, some stats:

On average Chicago sees snow fall from the sky on 28 days out of the roughly 120 days you typically could see snow from mid to late November to mid March.

So around 23% of the winter months see snowfall and 7% of the days in a year see snow.

Total days in a year of seeing snow fall from the sky of at least:

One inch: 11 days
Three inches: 3 days
Five inches: 1 day
Full on blizzard with a foot of snow: once every 5-10 years

Total number of days with snow on the ground of at least:

One inch: 45 days
Three inches: 25 days
Five inches: 14 days
Ten inches: 2 days

So out of the snowfall period the number of days it's snowy:

One inch: 37%
Three inches: 21%
Five inches: 12%
Ten inches: 1%

[IowanFarmer]

Originally Posted by Citykid3785

Being from MN, I can attest that this region's snowfall sticks around after it falls. I recently saw a pic from this July that showed 1 parking lot in the Twin Cities that had a smidgen of snow left (covered/insulted in dirt, left from a parking lot giant snowpile mind you). the average high temp in the coldest month in the Twin Cities is 19, with a low of 4. And, in a way, the cold begets cold. That is, snow coverage keeps temps cooler, enabling more snow. The flipside to this is that many of the bitter cold regions lack the moisture to get consistent, huge snowfalls. While they can happen, MN usually gets little 4 inch snow falls, vs. say the Northeast or the Rockies which can get more large 12"+ events

So definitely:
N dakota
S Dakota
MN
WI
Northern IA
Michigan
Upstate NY
Vermont
NH
Maine

Also include Mountainous regions of the more Northern states, like NY, Montana, WY, CO, etc.

I live in northern Iowa, 10 miles from the MN border, and we really don't get fully snow bound any more. We'll still get big snows and really cold temps, but every couple of weeks there's a thaw that melts a crap ton of the snow off, if not all of it. It's been quite awhile since we had the standard mid-December through early March constant layer of snow. We had maybe a month and a half of constant snow presence this last year, but it was statistically one of the harshest winters ever due to the cold snap that followed the first big snow in early February.

Far southern MN and southern WI are in the same boat it seems.

[Sun Belt-lover L.A.M.]

Vermont. That's where. I've heard they have snow on the ground for all of December, January and February (meteorological winter). Snowpack usually doesn't melt until sometime in March, and transient snows in November and even April aren't uncommon.

Good luck. White scenery isn't what it seems. You have to have a central heating system, driving in snow is dangerous, and it's too cold to enjoy much time outside.

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt-lover L.A.M.

Vermont. That's where. I've heard they have snow on the ground for all of December, January and February (meteorological winter). Snowpack usually doesn't melt until sometime in March, and transient snows in November and even April aren't uncommon.

Good luck. White scenery isn't what it seems. You have to have a central heating system, driving in snow is dangerous, and it's too cold to enjoy much time outside.

Too cold, no, that’s what winter sports are for- going out in the snow. You can’t do much of anything outside in the South in winter, way to rainy, muddy, and nasty.

[BadgerFilms]

Originally Posted by GraniteStater

Too cold, no, that’s what winter sports are for- going out in the snow. You can’t do much of anything outside in the South in winter, way to rainy, muddy, and nasty.

Right. New Years Day this year I spent it playing hockey at 7 degrees on a frozen lake. I was actually starting to sweat. Too cold? Please. No one talks about the south being "too hot."

[BadgerFilms]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt-lover L.A.M.

Vermont. That's where. I've heard they have snow on the ground for all of December, January and February (meteorological winter). Snowpack usually doesn't melt until sometime in March, and transient snows in November and even April aren't uncommon.

Good luck. White scenery isn't what it seems. You have to have a central heating system, driving in snow is dangerous, and it's too cold to enjoy much time outside.

Almost everyone has central heating, even in the south. We had it in Miami, though rarely used it. Don't see why that's a problem. You need central cooling in the South, but never see that mentioned. Driving in high humidity, fogging up windows like I had to in Georgia this year, was scarier to me than driving in the snow, and yea it's "too cold" if you don't dress right. Bundle up and have some fun. With global warming, I would be lucky if my grandkids ever even get to see snow Or visit my hometown without scuba gear.

[Matt Marcinkiewicz]

Originally Posted by RocketSci

Another candidate is east of Lake Ontario, Syracuse and especially Watertown NY (home of the US Army 10th Mountain Division). Nearly always more snow than the Buffalo area due to lake effect storms, as Lake Ontario never freezes.

Did not know the bolded; interesting. Just googled and found out the following: 'In a normal winter, Lake Ontario will be at most one quarter ice-covered, in a mild winter almost completely unfrozen. Lake Ontario has completely frozen over on five recorded occasions: from about January 20 to about March 20, 1830; in 1874; in 1893; in 1912; and in February 1934.'

[Matt Marcinkiewicz]

Originally Posted by memph

As a Canadian you're usually living near the US border. Currently, I'm about 70km from the Minnesota border. We already had two snowfalls this year, although they were just a couple cm and the snow only lasted a few hours before melting. There's snow on the ground for most of November though, and for the past 3 winters of living here, I've yet to see a single day in December to March when there wasn't snow cover. The snow cover usually lasts into April, this year, the snow in the city lasted until late April on the lawns (mid May for some of the bigger piles made by snowplows) and there were areas in the woods in and hills that still had 20-30 cm in mid-late April, and a few small patches into mid-late May.

The climate on the US side of the border in NE Minnesota is essentially identical. So the parts of the US around Lake Superior have 4-6 months of snow cover. Probably Minneapolis, Green Bay, Traverse City and Fargo also have snow on the ground pretty consistently.

I've also lived in Southern Ontario. Over there, it depends where you are relative to the lakes, which generate snowbelts as well as a moderating effect. The shore of Lake Ontario from Toronto to Hamilton gets little snowbelt precipitation, but has a moderating effect, so there can be decently 10-20cm snowfalls any time from December to March, but it's rare for snow to last more than 2-3 weeks. I would say there's about 50-60 days of snow cover there. But in Waterloo, it's 1-2 degrees colder with a bit more snowbelt precipitation, so there it's already more like 80 days of snow cover. In Barrie it's a bit colder still with more snowbelts, so maybe 90 days?

This map basically answers your question.


Based off that map, among the bigger regional cities, looks like roughly

Duluth, MN: 130 days
Boise, ID: 130 days
Salt Lake City, UT: 120 days
Burlington, VT: 120 days
Fargo, ND: 100 days
Minneapolis, MN: 100 days
Bozeman, MT: 100 days
Manchester, NH: 90 days
Syracuse, NY: 90 days
Albany, NY: 90 days
Green Bay, WI: 85 days
Portland, ME: 80 days
Buffalo, NY: 80 days
Denver, CO: 75 days
Cheyenne, WY: 70 days
Reno, NV: 70 days
Rochester, NY: 70 days
Springfield, MA: 70 days
Madison, WI: 70 days
Grand Rapids, MI: 70 days
Sioux Falls, SD: 70 days
Milwaukee, WI: 65 days
Scranton, PA: 60 days
Rapid City, SD: 60 days
Cleveland, OH: 55 days
Davenport, IA: 50 days
Des Moines, IA: 50 days
Spokane, WA: 50 days
Boston, MA: 45 days
Detroit, MI: 45 days
Chicago, IL: 45 days
Omaha, NE: 40 days
Pittsburgh, PA: 40 days
Columbus, OH: 30 days
New York City, NY: 25 days
Kansas City, MO: 25 days
Santa Fe, NM: 25 days
Philadelphia, PA: 20 days
St. Louis, MO: 20 days

The Western cities (Bozeman, Reno, Salt Lake, Denver, Boise, Spokane, Cheyenne, Santa Fe) are hard to estimate from this map though since it's a very zoomed out map and there's going to be very significant differences depending on which side of a mountain they're on or what the exact elevation is. Someone more familiar with those cities would have to confirm what they're like.

The areas with extremely long lasting snow (>100 days) in the eastern half of the country mostly have small cities, Duluth and Burlington aren't that big, and there's also Watertown, Bangor, Grand Forks, Minot, Wausau, Marquette, Traverse City and others but those are mostly towns or small cities. I would consider 50-100 days to still be a significant length of snow cover though, and that includes some relatively large cities like Buffalo, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Cleveland, and the northern or more inland parts of the Boston area. Chicago and Detroit get decent snow cover too. New York City and Philadelphia not so much, there will be a few days here and there, maybe even a week or two, but there are more snow-free days during the winter than days with snow. The southern half of the US, the West Coast and the East Coast up to Baltimore get very little snow cover or none at all.

Good stuff, memph

[Frihed89]

Look to the Northern mid-continental states.