Outdoor Power Equipment (Lawn Mowers, Snow Blowers, Chain Saws and more) Discussions

How much snowfall do you average?

I'm not far from #18, coming in at around 71" annually.

http://www.city-data.com/top2/c464.html

I wonder how they arrived at those averages. I live near Green Bay which is listed as having 47.7" of annual snow. That's pretty low when looking back at the approximately 87" of snow we've had in each of the last 2 winters ... although both of those years were record setters (according to the article below).

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Like it or not, the 2008-09 snowfall has set a record for the snowiest winter season Green Bay has seen in well over 100 years.

At 87.7 inches of snow to date, the season is second to none since 1900.

It makes last year’s winter of 87.4 inches a distant memory, and the winter of 1922-23 has slipped to third place in the record books from 1900 to date.

http://globalfreeze.wordpress.com/2009/04/22/2008-09-snowfall-reaches-a-new-record/

snowgo wrote:

I'm not sure...  On their main page, they're ambiguous in saying, "We've collected and analyzed data from numerous sources to create as complete and interesting profiles of all U.S. cities as we could."  Nowhere did I find what those "sources" are.  I hope I didn't link to a bunch of bunk data.

I found on a local news source page for South Bend, IN (city #18 referenced in my OP) that the 2008-2009 total was 77.2" and normal/average is 76.5".  That's a few more than the 71" listed in the link, but within reason I would say.

The numbers listed aren't unrealistic. When averaging statistics, years with very little snowfall can skew the numbers dramatically. If the averaging were to eliminate the very unusually light snowfall years, the numbers would reveal a very different perspective. For instance lets look at five years of average snowfall in the area of my city in Northwestern Ontario. Depending on the source, we receive an average of 74 to 83 inches of snow. Those two figures average 78.5 inches. Hypothetically, lets say that in the last five years we received the following amount of snow

2008 - 79
2007 - 82
2006 - 91
2005 - 30
2004 - 89

The average is 74.2 inches. Now take out the 30 inch snow fall and divide the total by four years. We get an average of 85.25. All it takes is a couple of years of low snowfall accumulations to skew the numbers.

In my area, I've seen years with very little snow accumulations. Less than 25 inches. Very rare of course. Other years I've seen in excess of 115 inches. The winter of 1995/96 comes to mind. Unusual but not as rare as less than 25 inches. So, despite the fact that the numbers say otherwise, our perspective of average snowfall reflects the normal annual snowfall rates we're used to seeing. Not the average.

borat wrote:

So, in your example, the median value of 82 would be closer to what is normally expected than the average.  I vaguely remember a type of averaging used in science that does exactly as you did, and tosses out the lowest and highest results, which are considered anomalies not representative of the norm.

I agree.

I can remember winters where it seemed like we only had to shovel 4 or 5 times the entire winter. Rare, but it happens. Then these last 2 winters around here, we literally had to shovel every other day for 5 or 6 week stretches at a time. The reason I even joined this list is due to those last 2 winters. Before that, I was content using my old used 1965 (or so) Ariens snow blower. But if we keep getting winters like they have been lately, I need a more powerful snow blower to do the job. The old Ariens served me well!

snowgo wrote:
Same thing here.  Last couple winters have been brutal.  I was shovelling 12"-18" drifts from my driveway routinely.  The other reason I splurged for a blower this year is that my wife is 9 weeks pregnant with our first.  I know she won't be helping with the shoveling this year.

Hey,

In las Vegas I got about 3 inches of wet snow on Dec 21st, and about 3 1/2 inches of blow sand for the year..


Friiy

friiy wrote:

Does 3" snow shut down the city, like it would in the south?

What's blow sand?

I'm not that sure how reliable those numbers are. I've lived in the great white north most of my life, and am familiar with a good many cities on that list. I've become pretty adept at estimating snowfall over the years (I'm 55 now), and a lot of those averages just don't compute in my experience - several of them seem ridiculously low. Call me skeptical, but there may be some hidden agenda at work here.

Oh no!  It's the black helicopters!!

Seriously, that list would change dramatically if the population dropped down to 20,000+ from 50,000+.  Nothing south of Duluth would likely make the cut.

Oh, Can-A-Daaaaa!

oldcrow wrote:

LOL

Yeah, I'm not sure about some of those numbers either.

Wouldn't you know it though, I bought my first snow blower in September and now this winter had yielded the least amount of snow I can remember in recent years.  My neighbors thank me.