Photo: Tino Rischawy//Unsplash
Mother Nature doesn’t check the calendar before she decides to dump snow on us…or not dump snow on us, depending on where you were in the United States last winter. Still, our climate does operate on somewhat consistent cycles each year. There’s more than enough data for meteorologists to recognize those patterns and give the rest of us an idea of what to expect: when will it snow, where will it snow, how much will it snow this winter? Even with that El Niño wild card in the mix. A new map published by the Farmers’ Almanac this week is making it real easy to see when you should expect snow this winter based on where you live in the United States.
The map is meant to be “a climactic guide” for expecting measurable snow, the Almanac points out, and not so much a forecast of when an individual storm will hit.
“Elevation, latitude, nearby bodies of water and the weather pattern in a particular year can move the first snow considerably earlier or later,” the Almanac reads. It used Denver as an example, where the first snowfall comes around October 18, on average. The Mile High City has still seen measurable snowfall as early as September and the first snow as late as December. The publication also distinguishes that “first flakes” are simply snow that falls but leaves nothing on the ground because it melts, the “first measurable snowfall,” which consists of at least .1 inch of snow accumulation, and the “first significant snowfall,” which brings the first inch(es) of the season.
Click to see your region. Photo: Farmer’s Almanac
“In the highest elevations of the northern Rockies, the first snow can arrive during August or September,” according to the Almanac. “Much of the northern Rockies, northern Plains and Upper Midwest typically sees its first measurable snow in October or early November. Across the Great Lakes and interior Northeast, November is common. Much of the central and Mid-Atlantic U.S. often waits until late November or December, while snow across the Deep South and Gulf Coast is much more variable — and may not occur at all in a given winter.”
To recap:
September: Highest northern mountains
October: Northern Rockies and parts of the northern Plains
November: Upper Midwest, Great Lakes and interior Northeast
Late November–December: Central U.S., Ohio Valley and much of the Mid-Atlantic
December–January or later: Much of the Deep South
Rarely: Gulf Coast, southern Florida, and some desert and coastal areas
