Rankings show who deals with most snow in US and they're not all in Alaska
Lawn Love used data from NOAA to come up with rankings that show which counties in the U.S. are most vulnerable to snow.
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While Alaska is a winter wonderland, it might surprise you to learn that there are quite a few places in the U.S. outside The Last Frontier that have to deal with lots of snow.
Lawn Love crunched NOAA historical snowfall and temperature records and averages to rank 256 counties across the U.S. from what they consider the snowiest to least snowy. They took into account average snowfall per year, which they rated highest of all stats. The record snowfall in one day was weighted the same as the average days of the year that don't make it above freezing. Also included, but lowest weighted, were record snowfall amounts over three days and the average annual temperature. Researchers calculated the overall rank, the snowfall rank and the temperature or climate rank for potential snowiest.
This methodology created some surprises.
Counties in Alaska accounted for only a third of the top 25 in the rankings. Two states that we associate with snowbirds who work hard to escape the winter white stuff placed in the top 10. No Florida county made it above 240. Maui County, Hawaii, did sneak into 236th place.
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File: Winter snow and low-lying clouds grace the Sonoran Desert with unexpected beauty, Carnegiea gigantea or Cereus giganteus, Saguaro cactus in foreground, Tucson Mountains, Tucson, Arizona.
(Wild Horizons/Universal Images Group / Getty Images)
Some surprises
"Four California counties; Fresno (No. 69), Los Angeles (No. 110), Kern (No. 118), and San Diego (No. 123), stand out in the top half of our ranking with 0 inches of annual snowfall," said Lawn Love's Editor-in-Chief Jeff Herman. "They shiver at the top thanks to historic 1-day records with over 36 inches of snowfall."
It turns out, Fresno got 81 inches of snow over three days in 1969. That pushed the county to the sixth spot in that category despite getting 0 inches of snow on average.
A San Diego blizzard in 1922 dropped 70 inches of snow. The county came in 11th in that category while scoring 0 on average annual snowfall.
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File: 1932-Hollywood, CA- Agnes Strite pointing to sign of Hollywood 4, LA 12, Hollywood in 1930s. View of side of mountains.
(Getty Images)
El Paso County, Colorado, topped the one-day snow record with 54 inches in 1957 but only came in 15th. Placer County, California, took the 3-day snow prize with 117 inches in 1911 and came in, not surprisingly, at 3rd.
"Despite encompassing the northernmost part of the country (within the Arctic Circle, to boot), our coldest county — North Slope Borough, Alaska (No. 41) — gets only about 34.2 inches of snow per year," Herman said. "This is due to the dry climate of the Arctic Coastal Tundra."
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File: Feet of snow leave the door covered to the marketing office of the Sugar Bowl Ski Resort in California after the latest winter storm pummeled the Sierra Nevada on Feb. 28, 2023.
(Sugar Bowl Ski Resort / FOX Weather)
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Out of the seven snowiest cities in the U.S., as calculated by FOX Weather, one county containing the city barely made the top 50.
Snowiest cities and rank versus the county's rank:
- Syracuse, New York, was No. 1 versus Onondaga County at No. 18.
- Erie, Pennsylvania, was No. 2 versus Erie County at No. 6.
- Rochester, New York, was No. 3 versus Monroe County at No. 48.
- Buffalo, New York, was No. 4 versus Erie County at No. 6
- Boulder, Colorado, was No. 5 versus its county not being included in the Lawn Love list.
- Flagstaff, Arizona, was No. 6 versus Coconino County at No. 7.
- Anchorage, Alaska, was No. 7 versus Matanuska-Susitna Borough at No. 4.
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