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110 days here. And we have no hills behind our houses.
I could manage with 70.
Here we average 44 days with snow cover (Midway airport)... Record low is 8 days during the winter of 1948/49. Record high is 100 days during the winter of 1978/79, which I remember very well being 6 years old.
Here is a map of snow cover days for Illinois. Parts of the Chicago area are over 50 days. Downstate less then 10 days...
Average number of days with 1" or more on the ground is about 3. I'm not sure what the record is, maybe 1917-18. It was the snowiest winter on record and consistently cold.
For wisconsin, days with snow cover of 1, 3, 5, 10 inches under the heading "Average Snowfall" here, lots of other data too. Days with 1 inch range from less than 60 in the extreme southeast corner to 130+ near the Michigan border. Wisconsin State Climatology Office
For Minnesota, I found a map of days with 12 inches or greater, http://climate.umn.edu/img/historical/sd_ge12.gif, it varies from less than 10 in the southeast to over 90 in one spot in the northeast, near Virginia. There's also a white christmas map Historical Chances of a White Christmas. This long pdf has about all the information you'd want, though it only has data from 1959 to 1979 Maps of mean number of days with 1, 3, 6, 12, 24 inch depths, first 1 inch snow cover, last 1 inch snow cover, average snow depth of all stations at 10 day intervals, ice out dates for lakes, etc. http://climate.umn.edu/pdf/climate_o...ta/comXIII.pdf.
Average days with snow on the ground is 10-20 days, according to the Met Office maps. .
The problem with the Met Office maps is that, I believe that they would count just a dusting. The US standard requires at least an inch of level snow. On those maps, the city centre and western part of Glasgow are shaded as 5-10, with the rest of the city and outskirts being in the 10-20 range (presumably much closer to the 10 than to the 20). From memory, the 1961-1990 average for Glasgow airport was 8 days of lying snow per year.
But those figures really do need to be taken with a pinch of salt, as I think that a dusting of snow covering over 50% of the ground at 9am would be counted as a day with lying snow.
Nobody really knows if the Met Office have a depth requirement. All we do know is that they count it as a snow day if it is covering more than 50% of the ground at 9am. If there's 2cm of snow covering the ground, regardless of the time, then I'm going to consider it a snow day. The Met only use 9am because it is more practical for manual stations.
10-20 doesn't sound unrealistic to me though; we're certainly one of the snowier cities in the UK (Leeds). But as I mentioned on another thread, I believe those maps are largely estimates, either based on existing stations, or just on elevation. Their maps don't always match up with what stations are showing. It'd be much better if each station kept snow cover records.
Oh, and here's one day in March 2010 with snow. Only around 2cm, but it's there, and it is covering the ground. Kinda looks like very heavy frost, but it's definitely snow. It's less than 1 inch, but there's no reason why it shouldn't be counted.
Nobody really knows if the Met Office have a depth requirement. All we do know is that they count it as a snow day if it is covering more than 50% of the ground at 9am. If there's 2cm of snow covering the ground, regardless of the time, then I'm going to consider it a snow day. The Met only use 9am because it is more practical for manual stations.
10-20 doesn't sound unrealistic to me though; we're certainly one of the snowier cities in the UK (Leeds). Bbut as I mentioned on another thread, those maps are largely estimates, either based on existing stations, or just on elevation, as their averages maps don't always match up with what stations are showing.
Since I've never seen a depth requirement specified, I take it as read that there is none. A dusting of snow which is just going to be completely melted away (except for shady areas) just doesn't cut it as a 'snow day' for me. The shading of the 1961-1990 map marries up with the figure of 8.1 snow days per year at Glasgow Airport.
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