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I like the ambience of a snowy landscape, but I don't want to deal with the hazards of heavy snowfall. Getting just enough to coat the ground and trees is ideal. Lately I've been looking more closely at the relationship of average snow amounts to the number of snow days. For example, in January Lexington averages 4.0" and 4.8 days with ≥0.1", or an average of 0.83" per snow day. Asheville, NC averages 4.1" and only 1.9 days, which comes out to 2.2" inches per day.
If the total amount of snow was the same in both scenarios, would you rather have one or two major snows or more frequent smaller ones?
I prefer a bit heavier snow than that. My fictional climate has 25.5" of snow falling on 15 days. So, enough to play in, but not enough to be snowbound typically.
My ideal winter isn't characterized by consistent snow cover. I like the sort of winter where there's a variety of weather from late November to early March; snow, ice, rain, sunny days, cold snaps, random days in the 50s, etc. I like an interesting winter.
I like a good mix of both, perhaps a smaller event (2-7") about two to three times a week, and a heavy blizzard about once every three weeks or a month. My ideal climate now averages 360" of snow.
I've noticed that the ratio seems to be around 2"/day east of the Appalachians and 1"/day west of the Appalachians.
I prefer a heavier ratio because I like big snowstorms. But in a place that only gets 6" of snow a year it might be nice to get two 2" snows, one 1" snow, and multiple dustings. If I could get the 28" of snow a year my dream climate has, I would like it to be divided (on average) into one 8" snow, one 4" snow, two 3" snows, three 2" snows, three 1" snows, and the rest as snows of <1".
Using Dec-Jan-Feb Normal snowfall then divided by 90 to find the Avg per day...
Syracuse: Normal 92" (1.02" per day)
Buffalo: Normal 70.0" (0.78" per day)
Caribou: Normal 70.3" (0.78" per day)
Burlington: Normal 55.4" (0.61" per day)
Boston: Normal 32.8" (0.36" per day)
Hartford: Normal 30.7" (0.34" per day)
NYC: Normal 21.0" (0.23" per day)
Philly: Normal 18.7" (0.21" per day)
I don't like snow at all but if I had to choose, I would choose many smaller snow events as they are less disruptive.
That doesn't make too much sense because if there are more frequent ones then disruption would be more even if 1". Depends on temps though...and location. I guess makes sense for us. lol
If you get a big one it's only a 12-24hr disruption and your done for the month. Unless you're talking feets then would be 1-2 days worth. Still.. Big deal. 1-2 day disruption for the month??
Small events with very, very little melt in between so it builds up over time, mixed in with a few big events. First small event in October, first big event in November, last big event in April, last small event in mid to late May.
Small events with very, very little melt in between so it builds up over time, mixed in with a few big events. First small event in October, first big event in November, last big event in April, last small event in mid to late May.
Sounds about ideal to me.
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