Minnesota Winters (updated)

Give me snow. I want it. I want to play in it. I want to see it. I’ll shovel. I’ll get wet shoes. I’ll let my boss give me whitewashes.

Much to my suprise while doing some research this weekend, I realized that we have actually been getting more inches of snow per year in the past ten years than our average over the last hundred. Why does is seem like we haven’t then?

Here are monthly averages for snow and temperature .

I took these tables and put them in excel and then did ten year averages. Turns out in the last ten years we have averaged 52 inches of snow while in the last 100 years it was 45. However in November it has been right around an average 6 inches.

It looks like the snow has not been sticking around though because (suprise) the big difference in temperature. The average median temp in November over the last 10 years is 36. Meaning snow melts. The 10 years before that the average in November was 31.53. Meaning it could stick around.

This will get really boring if I go into stats about global warming so I’ve linked to the excel files below. But damn I want snow. I associate my childhood years with playing in snow. My favorite days in Northern Minnesota were waking up with a fresh coat and walking in complete silence through the woods to the bus stop. We are 10 years removed from the last time I used snowshoes.

Disclaimer: I’m not a meteorologist – but I could play one on T.V.

Ok. Here are links to the files. Note that the snowfall seasons actually END in the year on the left of the column. So the 2006 season was 2005-2006 winter.

Temperatures: Download file

Snowfall: Download file

For a lot more climate info go to: http://climate.umn.edu/


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