381 comments on “All Snowiest US Cities

    • Hi Mike, I always look when I’m updating http://www.goldensnowball.com to see how Binghamton would be doing in the National contest and no doubt they would be doing good. This contest is only for cities with a population of 100,000 or more though…

  1. I know others have had more snow and the list has no respect for rural folks but how many of you live in the 9th highest city on this list and work in the 7th highest. And that’s not the best of it: All the local road commission’s openly state —-”They got no money – Be Safe & Good Luck” Not a good time for record snowfall.

    • Hi Jim, I know Syracuse has gone over budget several times. I can only imagine how many cities are over their DPW and snow removal budgets not to mention how many of them have had to restock whatever they use on the roads this season.

      • Wow and just think Adam, in the last 7 days you have had almost what you should have for the whole season so far up to today which is around 35 inches. Pretty impressive :)

  2. I love snow and lots of it but this is just so overwhelming. In all my life I have never seen this much snow in a winter. I miss home in Arizona didnt have to live in the snow and could drive two hours too see snow. Now why did i move to one of the snowiest cities in the United States ~thinks for a moment~ no no not one of the snowiest cities, I meant the snowiest city in the nation, I must of been out of my mind when i decided to move up here from one extreme to the other. ~Kayli, Erie Pennsylvania first winter here

    • Ahhhh, March. Here in Erie we get to start thinking that perhaps, maybe winter will possibly be ending someday.

  3. I moved back to Erie from Vegas to help out my elderly mother and look what I get! Last time I am ever going to be nice!

  4. Griffith, Indiana in Northwest Indiana have 86 inches of snow so far this winter. It is the snowiest town in all of the Chicagoland Area this winter. It’s population is just under 17,000 though. South Bend is the only Indiana city that has more snow than Griffith as I could see. Griffith officially have 22.3 inches of the lake effect snow just exactly 4 weeks ago, and it was the hardest hit in the lake effect storm while Chicago had just 6 inches. It’s total is now at 68 inches for the year.

    • Hi Cheryl, I was hoping to see what Worcester had to report this last update but unfortunately they are reporting MM which means data not available. Chances are come morning I’ll be able to add the new totals for Worcester :)

  5. Just want to say thanks for the terrific site, I love the snow and love seeing who gets the most.

    You should look into adding Lowell, MA. They’ve got about 110k people and would probably squeeze into the top 20 cities or so.

    • Andrew, I’m pretty sure that I checked out Lowell, MA not too long ago. I looked for awhile but couldn’t come up with any official snow stats from the National Weather Service. They meet the population requirement no problem. If you can find me a link from NOAA I would be more than happy to take a look and consider adding them. I’m pretty sure that the Taunton, MA weather station is the one who handles that city and the stats would be coming from Bedford, Hanscom Field but I can’t come up with snow stats for them. These are the types of cities I would like to check out to make sure we aren’t missing any that may be near the top. Thanks!

    • @ Wendy, Deb and Nancy, Nice to see some women commenting that you like the snow. All of my female friends and family complain non stop for 3-4 months about it :) Well, I think a lot of my male friends do the same though come to think about it…

        • Just another month to go before most of us should be done with the snow Kim. Of course it will probably take until July for it all to melt :(

    • Grew up in Girard, specifically Rice Avenue. Miss Erie County, not the snow. We had a garage, but I never saw the family car in it. As it was told to me: Dad parked the car in it until he came out early one morning and found a 3 foot drift in front of the garage. He never parked in there again. The most popular phrase in the winter was, “Boys, your father will be home soon, go out and shovel the driveway.” It was a long driveway. In on Rice out on Miles Avenue. Why would we want a snow blower? I had brothers.

  6. West coast of Michigan along Lake Michigan. No one less than 110 inches. Granted, none of these towns over 100,000, but it’s still snow. 5 more inches today due in Grand Haven, Mi. It’s beautiful.

  7. This might not interest people as much but have you thought about doing another contest for “days of measurable snow”? I live in Pittsburgh and I think we’d have a chance of winning or at least being top 5! As a snow lover, I’ve learned how nice it is to wake up often to even just a fresh, white, powdery half inch of new snow.

    • Lee, not a bad idea but a little time consuming for me. That said it would be interesting to see how that would turn out. Just thinking back I think maybe Erie, Buffalo, perhaps Pitt and others would be doing good as far as that goes. It seems I am always adding some kind of measurable snow each update to those cities. I think the Michigan cities would be in there also..

  8. Hey im from NYC and we have gotten 54.0 inches not 51 and expect another 2 to 4 today but this winter has been bad here

      • I love snow but in NYC alot of people have been complaining about it. Me personally idc it could snow all it wants

        • My niece is living there and loves it when it snows in NYC. On the other hand I have a friend who is a life long New Yorker and this season he has been going back and forth from NYC to Arizona. He just flew back to the city and already booked his ticket back to Arizona in a few days. He lost everything during Sandy and is just about done rebuilding. I think it feels good to get away every now and then just to relax ;) NYC is impressing me…

      • Pretty much Lee :) Probably a 60-40 mix. 60 % think bad means not enough snow… Of course as the winter drags on that number will change including myself..

    • Actually you have 55.6 right now in Central Park which is where we are going by for the snow stats. Keep in mind that they are always changing and when ever we get a full update in any new snow will be added :)

    • Lee, I was looing around after that last storm came by and was impressed with how much snow cities that far south got. Maybe it’s time to drop some of the deadbeat cities here and add a couple new ones from further south. I think even some of the bigger cities in Texas have more snow than some of them listed here :)

      • If you read the top of this page you would see this IS a ranking of ALL US cities with a population of 100,000 or more, last updated yesterday morning 2/14/14 at 10am.
        So if the larger cities in Texas had more snow than the ones listed here, they would be listed here.

        • Hi John, I probably should have said it a little better. At the beginning of the season we pretty much use the same cities as last season. Every now and then some surprises are thrown in with cities over 100,000 that you wouldn’t expect to get much snow end up picking up a lot of snow if they get hit with a couple decent storms. This season is probably a good example because there have been a few decent storms that dropped a decent amount of snow on some of the cities to the south like in the Carolina’s which I don’t have listed here. Unfortunately there would be too many to list and check every day or 2 like I do right now. It would probably take the whole day each time I do an update. Right now we are listing the big players such as Erie, Syracuse, Rochester, Worcester, Grand Rapids and so on for the fact that the chances are those cities will be near the top each season.

          Then there are the other cities that normally get snow. Some may get a lot of snow one season but no the next. Some of the cities listed here don’t have a chance of ever winning such as New Mexico but people seem to find it interesting that they even get snow even though it’s not a lot. What I was saying is it may be time to take a look around after the last couple of storms hit and maybe add a few more cities to the contest. Of course I would also probably drop a few that are on the bottom right now such as Kansas City, Missouri, Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska, etc. The cities on the East coast will always stay just for the fact that every now and then they are near the top of the snow contest. So in other words there are probably another 50 – 75 cities not on here with over 100,000 that have had some snow this season and it may be worth taking a look around to see which ones are worth adding. Most likely not going to win but to me kind of interesting to see the cities way south getting the amounts that they have. Hope this makes a little more sense..

    • Hi Wendy, I was able to find it. Here is what the national weather service is reporting for Portland and the 67.2 which is what you have so far is pretty impressive

      SNOWFALL (IN)
      YESTERDAY —- 9.2

      MONTH TO DATE —— 22.9

      SINCE DEC 1 —– 66.7

      SINCE JUL 1 —— 67.2

      If you go to http://www.nws.noaa.gov/climate/index.php?wfo=gyx and click on Portland, then click Go it will give you your current stats every time they update them..

  9. the wierdest coments. some guysays u should not be posting less than 5 inches. the lowest posted recording here was 6.6 . oh, they are coloradans. also u smarty britches talk about snow in south, heck roanoke virginia, southeast corner @15.5 right now we are not great big snow timers but certainly not strangers to it. i guess va closer to mid-atlantic forcasts. @14 in this storm and still snowing.

    • Hi Good4u, The reason for some of the cities listed here is to just kind of show how ones you think would get no snow do. New Mexico is a good example. I have no problem switching some of the cities out with others from the south if they have some decent snow to show. Obviously when these storms like yesterday hit it changes everything around.

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  14. I’m from Erie and I think it’s great we’re #1. I miss the snow. Right now I live in DC metro area…and down here it’s nothing short of piss your pants funny when we even get the threat of snow. The entire region would shut down over 7 inches of snow. Hell my kids didn’t even have school today because there was .40 inches of ice on the ground this morning at 5 am; which then turned to rain by 9 am. My kids have no idea how good they have it.

      • I live in Buffalo & find it funny when my brother in law who now lives in N.C. tells me 2 inches of snow shuts down the city. All that means here in Buffalo is I might have to wear long pants…maybe..

        • Ken, my daughter lives in the Carolina’s and pretty much just shakes her head when she goes to the store and all of the shelves are empty :) She posted some pictures from NC yesterday of my Grandson playing in the snow from this current storm and it looks like they had quite a bit this time. Looked like around 5 inches. Well quite a bit as far as the south snow goes anyways.

      • But Syracuse,we got ya this year! Usually you lead Buffalo in the snow total but not this year!
        As I’m sure everyone knows, or think they know.. Buffalo gets snow…Lots of snow. I’ve Lived in a burb of the Buff all my 51 years. Do I get sick of it? I’d be lying if I said around Feb 24 I’m not wishing I could walk out to the mailbox in my shorts and tee shirt. The last 2 years we’ve had very mild winters, by our standards. I used my snowblower 5 times combined the last 2 years. Mostly to do a quick “Clean up”. Only 1 snowfall of more than 10″. This year however, I’ve used it….I’ve lost count. Probably 20 times? No huge storm, worst was 2 feet. To Buffalonians, a semi serious snowfall. I live in the “Southtowns” That’s where most of the snow falls. I’ve seen storms that dumped twice that. And back in 1977 we had the mother of storms. The infamous “Blizzard Of 77″! That storm was massive. The snow piled up on a frozen Lake Erie throughout the winter. Then one day, heavy winds picked up all that snow and dumped it on the city & surrounding suburbs. Along with high winds and below zero temps, made for a deadly storm. I could walk onto my parents 2 story roof because the drift was so high! People had to tunnel out of their homes because drifts completely covered their doors. Some had to get out through 2nd story windows!
        We also get what’s called “lake effect”. It’s when moisture is picked up from a relatively warm, unfrozen Lake Erie or Ontario and drops it on us as snow. Most of the time I’m happy to see snow as I snowmobile and my son snowboards so the more the merrier. Until we have to drive home from work in it. Not the snow mind you, but the ” senior drivers” who forgot how to drive, let along drive in snow. I have a truck with 4 wheel drive. I welcome it. But then again I don’t own one snowblower. I have 2. One as a backup…

        • Every time I see pictures from that storm of 77 in Buffalo I am amazed Ken. I was browsing through a book that a friend had on it and no doubt it was one for the history books.

          As far as it being Buffalo’s turn just think of last nights Syracuse – Pitt game. Just when you think you have it locked up here comes Da’Cuse ;) It is nice though to see Buffalo finally making an effort this season after the last couple of snow seasons. I just updated the New York Golden Snowball contest and right now it’s advantage Buffalo by 9 inches :) We (Syracuse) is slowly closing the gap. Good Luck Buffalo and if Syracuse can’t win the national snow contest let’s at least make it a New York city that does. No offense to Erie or the rest of you of course ;)

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  17. I did not see South Bend, IN on the list as they were in years past. I believe we may be in the top 10 based on the snowfall we have had this year.
    Thanks.

  18. I’m from Erie, PA and I’m really surprised that we hit first. Because my mom is from Richfield Springs, New York and the way she explained it to me is that they got hit hard almost every day with snow. Well even so I’m not going to brag about this. I hate snow….lol

    • His rankings are based on 2 factors… First, the city has to have over 100,000 people. That takes Richfield Springs out of the mix (but not Syracuse, your nearest city with over 100,000 people). Syracuse is ranked 4th and only because the NWS station is north of the city in a more LES prone area. I’m from Buffalo and I know that our totals would be much higher if our NWS station was south of Buffalo in our LES belt and not east of the city at the Buffalo Niagara Int’l Airport.

      • Right Joe. I live on the Lancaster / Orchard Park line and we’ve gotten over 100 inches easily. Hey, it’s Buffalo. It snows here. But man, do we have nice Spring & Summers here. And Fall is my favorite season of all. Nice days in the 60′s. And crisp, clear and cool nights in the 40′s to 50′s.

    • Hi Lacey, no doubt some of the smaller cities and towns would take over probably all of the 68 spots on the snow board with the amount of snow they get in comparison to the cities listed here. The cities listed here are all of the bigger cities with a population of 100,000 or more. Erie right now is the snowiest big city in the US right now, it’s your duty to brag away about it ;)

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    • Hi Cory, unfortunately I just pulled South Bend this last update and trust me, I didn’t want to. We have been waiting for NOAA to post their official snow totals for awhile now and they haven’t since around mid December. We looked around to see what was going on and Stephen who posts here found out why. It appears there is some kind of dispute going on with NOAA and the airport as far as someone at the airport measuring the snow. From what I have read is that any snow stats for South Bend for the time being anyways are unofficial snow stats. I’m not sure where WNDU is getting their stats from unless they are taking measurements where they are at. I know that NOAA is looking for snow spotters that lives or who spends time around the airport to help out. Do you know if WNDU is near the airport or are you Cory? Here is the info about it and hopefully South Bend will be back before the season is over. Sorry about that.

      http://www.fox28.com/story/24264229/2013/12/19/explaining-the-odd-snow-totals-this-year

      • Wow, that’s unfortunate! I live about 30 miles from the South Bend airport. WNDU is the regional news station located in South Bend. It is located about 5 miles from the airport. I assume they are measuring snowfall at their news station, not at the airport. It would be pretty accurate but I can understand it not being an “official” snowfall report. I will say though that the 46.4″ does sum up this snowfall with the last two storms that came through. Thanks for responding! :)

        • Cory, I did just get off the phone with the National Weather Service for South Bend. The guy I talked to said they are getting flooded by calls with people not too happy about what’s going on. He said it will be tough trying to find a person to do the measurements but mentioned that this has happened to other weather stations and they were able to get groups to do it. I did mention the news station that you posted so who knows? Maybe they can get them all trained and setup to do it. I forget what he wanted for distance but 5 miles from the airport would at least be something :)

      • By a rough latitude/longitude estimate, the Niles, MI station (reporting ~41″) may be close enough (~9.3 mi from the airport and 11.8 mi from the heart of South Bend) to use as a surrogate for the time being?

        Look at our (NY’s) Watertown, which has been smashed pretty well with snow lately, but (in the NOAA data I’m reading) they only tally 7″ from a single report on December 15! (It’s understood that Watertown is significantly under the population requirement; it’s a perfect parallel example, though.)

        • Hi Rob and thanks for the input. When I talked with NOAA station that reports/reported the South Bend snow totals he mentioned something about how they like to keep it within 5 miles of where the snow from South Bend was being measured. I don’t think the National Weather Service would consider the Niles station as being official or representative of South Bend but I do get what you are saying.

          As far a Watertown goes several years back I started a small city/town contest or at least tried to because I know so many of them get a whole lot more snow than the bigger cities listed here do. It never worked out mainly because of what you mentioned. They don’t report the snow stats enough to make the contest any fun. I think at one point I had to wait until the end of the season to even get any snowfall stats from Watertown and several other cities. I know there are a few sites that post some snow stats for some of the smaller cities that are most likely from Snow Spotters. I’ve said it a ton of times how much I respect the snow spotters but unfortunately there aren’t enough of them to cover some of the smaller cities.

  21. why don’t you list houghton michigan or marqette michigan they both have more snow than anything you have listed. mass city mi has over a hundred inches for the year allready.

    • Hi Ray, this contest is for bigger cities with a population of 100,000 or more. It’s too hard to find snow stats for the smaller cities not to mention that there are so many of them. Here in my area we also have several smaller cities that are well over 100 inches and counting. I respect those cities and towns, believe me, but there is no way to get official snow stats from the National Weather Service for most of them.

      • The UP of Michigan is quite snowy, however, New York’s Tug Hill Takes the crown. Redfield NY(Oswego County)as of January 20th, has seen 249 inches, while Valdez Alaska today(January 25th) has seen only 179 by comparison.

  22. Hi, you guys have NYC at 11.7 when we had recieved 15 inches according to the national weather service website

    • Erie gets the “Golden Shovel Award” for all the snow we’ve endured this 2013-2014 winter season. Ah,ya gotta love it or leave it!

    • It is so terrible cold here in Erie, pa..10 degrees and falling fast..Every school in Erie is closed tomorrow. .!!..negative-40 tomorrow because of wind chill..GOERIE.COM..

  23. i’m sure you have your work cut out after this past weekend! it’s been snowing like mad here in Erie, PA! i think we may be taking the #1 spot after this constant Lake Effect!

    thanks for all the great work you’re doing! btw do you have a Facebook page? people love seeing these totals!

    • No! I won’t allow it! Although Lake Erie is frozen over, we don’t see a lot of snow in Buffalo once that happens ;-(… But we could get a nice NorEaster to come by and smack us! I can only hope right?

    • Hi Diane, thanks for the heads up. No doubt they will be ahead of several of the cities that we have listed still. Let me see which city I can replace and if I remember I’ll add them back in. I think it’s always fun seeing that Albuquerque gets snow :) Of course the city I drop I’m going to blame it on you, joking :)

      • Just a heads up to anyone who posts a comment here and we do love it when you do BTW. For some reason I have been replying to your comments but they are going into the spam where they get lost forever after I delete the spam. I just looked for my reply’s and just noticed that they were showing up but trust me I do normally get back to all of the comments here. I’ll see if I can figure out what the problem is. In other words, don’t think I am ignoring ya’s when you post something ;)

    • Hi Fransicso, there is a population minimum of 100,000 people. We figure that the snow is effecting a lot more people doing it this way. Don’t get me wrong either, I respect all of the smaller towns that get hammered with a lot more snow than the cities listed on here. A couple of the smaller cities just up to the North of Syracuse often get 200 – 300 inches and I know it’s the same for smaller cities in a lot of the snowy states. A couple of the problems adding the smaller cities is that there are so many of them that it would take forever to put all of the snow totals together and that is even if you can find snow stats for a lot of the cities. We use the national weather service as the official snow stats here and for a lot of the smaller towns and cities they don’t get reported until the end of the season or monthly. I tried doing a contest for a few of just the small areas and it just wouldn’t work.

      I really like that one link you posted and how that have the snow stats setup. Thanks for the info Fransicso :)

    • if there was not a population limit, union city, pa would be the snowiest “city” in america, a town of under 3000, 20 miles south of erie, pa lies directly in the heart of the snow belt region. every year union city gets more snow than erie

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  25. Syracuse does not measure in the city at all.. yes they are cheating.. the measurement is taken at the airport north of the city..and as far as 114inchs I only had to do my driveway 2xs this winter..I firmly believe that they be eliminated from compitition after all they are not measuring the city at all..they are taking credit for the village of north syracuse..hardly meets the pop criteria.

    • Most places measure at the airport because that is there the national weather service has their stations. Buffalo and Rochester do the same and both airports are not in the city proper. As for the actual value in the city it is really close to the airport. They are only seperated by a few miles at most.

  26. I should take umbrage at your need to use only large cities. I am northwest a bit from Syracuse and our snowfall this year is currently over 180″. We will likely hit 200 before the season ends. Fulton, NY

    • Emily, are you saying that the snow where you live seems higher than what the National Weather Service is reporting or that 108 inches is a lot of snow?

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  28. I currently live in Detroit and it’s been a strange snow season with 39.9″ of snow this year according to the stats provided here. I’m sure it’s true because Detroit doesn’t lie about snow totals like my hometown of Chicago does, but I’ve only had to shovel snow 2 or 3 times all season. I’m sure it’s possible since we’ve had so many 1′-2′ snowfalls. It’s just that we haven’t had a large amount of snow on the ground at any one time all season. It’s been a strange year. By the way I’d like to commend the owner of this site for doing such a great job and keeping it up to date the way they have.

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  30. All of these cities have a rather large population over 100,000. I come from an area of upstate New York where the cities and towns receive well over 114 inches of snow a year. When some of these large cities get a foot of snow they are paralyzed, whereas in my hometown of Watertown, NY this is just a minor nuisance.

    • The lake effect snow areas of Mi, Ny, In, Pa and Ontario get clobberd but we don’t here about it because it’s not a big deal to them and like you said not too many people live there.

        • Leandro, thanks for the suggestion. I checked into Flagstaff, AZ and unfortunately the population doesn’t reach the 100,000 requirement. I wish it did because the more competition the more fun the contest is :)

    • Traverse City, MI here. Snowblowing is a daily ritual here. Average 100 inches a year but were already at 76 the week before Christmas this year. We used to be like “what about us” everytime the east coast got a snow “storm”, now we just laugh and say “good for them”. It’s the norm here and no one on a national level cares about the norm.

  31. You shouldn’t list anything below 5 inches. I’m hesitant to say that you should even list 5 inches. I’m from Colorado. Getting 5 inches is nothing but a wet road. You might as well be drivng in the rain.

    • The point for many of us is that we got such little snow this year so seeing 1.8 inches for Baltimore when we’re normally closer to 20 is quite useful. I’m from Western PA originally and really missed getting any real snow this year.

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