Snowiest City in the World?

[leftopolis]

I guess I've been watching lots of winter sports on TV, recently...And with the Winter Olympics just a couple of months away, I'm wondering: What's the snowiest city in the world? I'm considering 1 million+(metro) as the definition of a city. Perhaps places that are snowier but have at least 100K population, are worth an honorable mention. I'm not interested in skiing villages and such--just places that became significant cities despite being impacted by major snowfalls. For you ludites still measuring the world in inches, here's a handy-dandy inches to centimeters conversion! (http://www.metric-conversions.org/length/inches-to-centimeters.htm) Also, in doing some footwork, i came up with Snowiest cities in Canada (http://www.currentresults.com/Weather-Extremes/Canada/snowiest-cities.php) and Snowiest cities of the US (http://www.currentresults.com/Weather-Extremes/US/snowiest.php)...none of which even came close to stacking up to Sapporo, Japan.

wikipedia - Sapporo, Japan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapporo#cite_note-9)

Population(March 2007) 1,890,561


Boasting 630 cm (248 inches) on average, it is one of the few metropolises in the world with such heavy snowfall.

http://www.h3.dion.ne.jp/~xosada/photo4/1024_768_037.jpg
http://www.h3.dion.ne.jp/~xosada/photo4/1024_768_037.jpg

[plinko]

I seem to recall that Flagstaff is the 'metropolitan area' with the most snow in the US, something like 150 inches a year. But it's much smaller than what you are talking about...

*edit*
Your handy link shows Flagstaff gets 101 inches on average...

How about Harbin, China?

[blade_bltz]

I spent a summer in Sapporo...it was absolutely beautiful. But even in the middle of July there was no mistaking that Sapporo is synonymous with winter - in particular the yukimatsuri, or Snow Festival. The Olympics/Winter Sports museum also seemed to be a draw.

I for one can't comprehend how the city functions with 250 inches a year. Growing up in Boston, the worst winter I ever had was in '95-'96, when we got 108'', and that seemed to be a nightmare...for everyone but us kids. Sapporo must have some ridiculously efficient methods of snow removal. The large network of underground complexes and the decent subway system must help a lot with the coping.

[R@ptor]

/\

Sapporo has lots of heated streets and sidewalks.

[Evergrey]

Buffalo

[MolsonExport]

USA for big cities, gotta be Buffalo. In canada for big cities , Quebec City (if this is counted as a big city; if not, then the honor goes to Montreal). I did not know Sapporo got so much snow (good beer).

[urbanactivist]

Isn't Harbin up there with snowfall as well?

[Steely Dan]

^ harbin is brutally cold in the winter, one of the coldest cities on the planet, but according to wikipedia, its winters are very dry, so it probably wouldn't rank terribly high on any snowfall lists.

interesting aside, i was at a party last weekend and met a guy who was born and raised in harbin and who's been living in chicago for the past 15 years. he said that a harbin winter made a chicago winter feel like miami by comparison. he said that chicagoans have no idea what cold actually is.

[leftopolis]

Harbin:
I have not seen the specific snow numberss--but very little precipitation falls in the winter months--it does get damn cold though. Harbin sees little in the way of precipitation during the winter.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harbin

Buffalo:
Doesn't even rank. Check link in post #1.

Quebec City:
Ranks 3rd for Canada with 316cm(see link in post #1), but still gets less than half the snow that Sapporo does.

[harls]

The winter of 2007/08 in Ottawa was brutal. I shoveled my driveway pretty much every day.

Here's my street:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2384/2324686630_17dddc4518_b.jpg

Here's a pic of Quebec City - March 2009. They blast the snow onto people's yards here instead of hauling it away, so things look worse than they really are :D

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3433/3381435177_a7687fb3a5_b.jpg

[Steely Dan]

here's a list that I compiled from wikipedia data for US metros over 1 million people ranked by greatest average annual snowfall.

1. Rochester - 95.0"
2. Buffalo - 91.1"
3. Salt Lake City - 62.7"
4. Denver - 61.7"
5. Cleveland - 55.4"
6. Minneapolis - 49.5"
7. Hartford - 47.3"
8. Milwaukee - 47.0"
9. Chicago - 43.1"
10. Detroit - 41.4"

if anyone can find any snowier 1 million+ metros in the US, please post them.

[leftopolis]

here's a list that I compiled from wikipedia data for US metros over 1 million people ranked by greatest average annual snowfall.

1. Rochester - 95.0"
2. Buffalo - 91.1"
3. Salt Lake City - 62.7"
4. Denver - 61.7"
5. Cleveland - 55.4"
6. Minneapolis - 49.5"
7. Hartford - 47.3"
8. Milwaukee - 47.0"
9. Chicago - 43.1"
10. Detroit - 41.4"

if anyone can find any snowier 1 million+ metros in the US, please post them.

Cool. The numbers here, vary a bit from your's...but Boston seemed conspicuously absent:
US Snowiest Cities (http://www.currentresults.com/Weather-Extremes/US/snowiest-cities.php)

[Steely Dan]

Cool. The numbers here, vary a bit from your's...but Boston seemed conspicuously absent:
US Snowiest Cities (http://www.currentresults.com/Weather-Extremes/US/snowiest-cities.php)

that list is wack, it's missing some fairly major cities such as buffalo, salt lake city, and minneapolis.

as for boston, wikipedia had it's average pegged at 40.9", which means it just barely missed the top 10 on my list.

[SacTownAndy]

:previous: I see where the discrepancy is coming from on those two US lists-

The link that leftopolis posted says this:

"Major cities included in these weather rankings are all the cities in the United States with over 440,000 people on July 1, 2006, according to the US Census Bureau's estimates."

That would explain why Buffalo, Rochester, Minneapolis, Salt Lake, etc are not included as their city proper populations are less than 440k.

[leftopolis]

that list is wack, it's missing some fairly major cities such as buffalo, salt lake city, and minneapolis.

as for boston, wikipedia had it's average pegged at 40.9", which means it just barely missed the top 10 on my list.

This would explain why the list is "wack":
Major cities included in these weather rankings are all the cities in the United States with over 440,000 people on July 1, 2006, according to the US Census Bureau's estimates.
Also, the wiki data must be from a different source. Here's an explanation of this data:
About the Data
(http://www.currentresults.com/Weather-Extremes/US/sources.php)United States climate data on this website were compiled from the US National Climatic Data Center weather station records referenced below. Annual and monthly averages are for the years 1971 to 2000. Most other weather data cover records up to the end of 2006.

[rousseau]

here's a list that I compiled from wikipedia data for US metros over 1 million people ranked by greatest average annual snowfall.

1. Rochester - 95.0"
2. Buffalo - 91.1"
3. Salt Lake City - 62.7"
4. Denver - 61.7"
5. Cleveland - 55.4"
6. Minneapolis - 49.5"
7. Hartford - 47.3"
8. Milwaukee - 47.0"
9. Chicago - 43.1"
10. Detroit - 41.4"

if anyone can find any snowier 1 million+ metros in the US, please post them.
Interesting, but those numbers are completely meaningless to me and 6 billion other people. Can you do the conversion?

[rousseau]

interesting aside, i was at a party last weekend and met a guy who was born and raised in harbin and who's been living in chicago for the past 15 years. he said that a harbin winter made a chicago winter feel like miami by comparison. he said that chicagoans have no idea what cold actually is.
We do central heating well in North America. I'm a Canadian, but the coldest winters I ever experienced (indoors) were in Spain and Taiwan.

[Strange Meat]

Denver: Snow and sunshine! :banana:

[Jasonhouse]

Interesting, but those numbers are completely meaningless to me and 6 billion other people. Can you do the conversion?
multiply by roughly 2.5

[rousseau]

multiply by roughly 2.5
Seems it would be a small courtesy on an international forum to show both the standard measurements and the ones Americans are still using (though I understand Americans aren't accustomed to giving consideration to this sort of thing).

It would be interesting to have the figures in the lists so that you could actually make comparisons with the American cities cited.

[Steely Dan]

Interesting, but those numbers are completely meaningless to me and 6 billion other people. Can you do the conversion?
i don't know how.




We do central heating well in North America. I'm a Canadian, but the coldest winters I ever experienced (indoors) were in Spain and Taiwan.
well, i think the guy from harbin was referring to the outdoor temperatures in harbin and chicago, not the relative effectiveness of home heating systems between the two cities. harbin's januray high/low average temps are 9 F/-12 F, whereas chicago's january high/low average temps are 30.7 F/16.2 F, so harbin does indeed take cold to whole different level compared to chicago.

[kool maudit]

jesus christ, rousseau ;) let them have their damn units!

[MNMike]

rousseau

Seriously, it says you are from Southern Ontario and you have no idea what those numbers in inches mean? I don't think I have met anyone else from the southern part of Canada who didn't know at least roughly what numbers convert to...just like I know roughly what they convert to in metric. Look it up, it's not that hard.

PS. I think that a very large percentage of the members on this forum are from the US, but I rarely see folks from other countries converting for us. Maybe once they start, others will return the favor:) We may be a minority in the world, but we make up a large chunk of this forum, lets be fair. The guy wasn't trying to be rude, he was just posting the numbers he knew best.

[leftopolis]

Seems it would be a small courtesy on an international forum to show both the standard measurements and the ones Americans are still using (though I understand Americans aren't accustomed to giving consideration to this sort of thing).

It would be interesting to have the figures in the lists so that you could actually make comparisons with the American cities cited.

Yes. I even linked to a conversion chart (in the 1st post)so that luddite Americans could do the conversion and not post figures that are meaningless to the rest of the planet...but then most of my posts in this thread--are essentially pointing out information that was already given in the original post--to Americans coincidently! I'm not sure if it's just laziness, apathy, arrogance or some combination of all 3.:shrug:

We're not all like that, though. I describe my citizenship as earthling--but my passport is US.:cheers:

BTW, I'm not finding snow data for San Carlos de Bariloche (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Carlos_de_Bariloche)...but I know that's where Brasilians go skiing(along with Argentinians and Northern Hemisphere pros who need to train all year). It's not a big city, but at 130K it's more than just a skiing village.
Looks like they get a little snow... (http://wintercenter.homestead.com/BarilocheArgentina.jpg)
http://wintercenter.homestead.com/BarilocheArgentina.jpg

[Strange Meat]

go to google, type in x inches in cm and viola...

so very, very difficult...

[MNMike]

PS, I opened this thread because I am into weather. Here in Minneapolis winters are fairly dry and get much less snow than many expect. It just tends to stick around longer.

We averge between 45 and 49 inches a year, depending on your source. That would be between 114 and 124cm/year.

[harls]

Don't convert.. that's just plain rude.

[rousseau]

The tiny courtesy of posting both sets of measurements (which people from other countries regularly do when they know Americans will be participating in a thread, by the way) is too much for Americans to do, and raising the issue is rude and condescending to Americans. Got it.

Really, it would just be nice to see both sets of numbers so that you could make comparisons. That's all. I still use feet and inches for body height, but nothing else, so 90 inches doesn't mean anything to me.

[MNMike]

Yeah, I can agree with that. To me, you just came across as immediately angry at those entitled Americans in your first post ...Maybe I just misread that, but I thought it was just a bit of an overreation, to which I overreacted. I get carried away with most anything very easliy, I really like to play devils advocate for some reason. haha. But yeah, I am pretty certain the first post you reacted to wasn't trying to be malicious, or even entitled, that is what I was getting at.

Anyway, back to snow!

[leftopolis]

PS, I opened this thread because I am into weather. Here in Minneapolis winters are fairly dry and get much less snow than many expect. It just tends to stick around longer.

We averge between 45 and 49 inches a year, depending on your source. That would be between 114 and 124cm/year.

People living in areas that can get bitterly cold, tend to know this: High snowfall tends to happen when it's barely below freezing. Places like Minneapolis have record snowfalls in October as opposed to January. Barrow AK--which tends to have snow every month of the year, only gets around 30cm(a foot!)/year.

[Boquillas]

here's a list that I compiled from wikipedia data for US metros over 1 million people ranked by greatest average annual snowfall.

1. Rochester - 95.0"
2. Buffalo - 91.1"
3. Salt Lake City - 62.7"
4. Denver - 61.7"
5. Cleveland - 55.4"
6. Minneapolis - 49.5"
7. Hartford - 47.3"
8. Milwaukee - 47.0"
9. Chicago - 43.1"
10. Detroit - 41.4"

if anyone can find any snowier 1 million+ metros in the US, please post them.

If Montana or Wyoming only had large cities, they'd be up there as well. Bozeman (~50,000 metro), where I used to live, averages (from what I could find) between 73 and 82 inches annually and had well over 100 inches in the winter of '05-'06 when I first lived there. Brutal for anyone from Texas.

[brian_b]

People living in areas that can get bitterly cold, tend to know this: High snowfall tends to happen when it's barely below freezing. Places like Minneapolis have record snowfalls in October as opposed to January. Barrow AK--which tends to have snow every month of the year, only gets around 30cm(a foot!)/year.

Not to mention that as the temperature changes the density of the snow changes which will affect how high the snow accumulates on the ground.

[JManc]

i remember the winter of 93-94, 173 inches in utica that year.

[leftopolis]

Not to mention that as the temperature changes the density of the snow changes which will affect how high the snow accumulates on the ground.

Yeah, good point. When I lived in the Pacific Northwest--the winters ranged from no snow at all, to 60 cm(2 ft) overnight. When we got a "cold" snap in the teens(F) or -9C...the snow would be powdery and very light. The local paper printed an old black/white photo of horses w/ carriages--crossing the frozen Wiliamette River before a bridge was built about a 100 years ago! So at least in the past, the area had some rather serious cold snaps!

[leftopolis]

Zurich (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zürich) is another sizeable(but well under 1 million) city which I'm not finding snow data on. It's certainly cold enough and precipitation high enough--to have some impressive snow totals. Anyone got a source?

[leftopolis]

i remember the winter of 93-94, 173 inches in utica that year.

Pfttt. 439cm? That would be a drought year in Sapporo!

[Strange Meat]

wolf creek in CO averages over 450 inches a year. :banana:

but many mountain areas in the rockies are like that, and around the world as well.



(that's ~ 1150 cm)

[Gordo]

People living in areas that can get bitterly cold, tend to know this: High snowfall tends to happen when it's barely below freezing. Places like Minneapolis have record snowfalls in October as opposed to January. Barrow AK--which tends to have snow every month of the year, only gets around 30cm(a foot!)/year.

Yeah, the first time I was driving with some friends up to the Lake Tahoe area, I was making fun of them talking about how much snow can fall up there (me growing up in Idaho where we typically had snow on the ground five to six months a year). I had to eat my words as it snowed more than five feet (152.4 cm) over the weekend, which is basically unheard of in Idaho.

Obviously no big cities in the Donner Pass/Lake Tahoe area (South Lake Tahoe, CA is biggest, around 25,000 with neighboring Stateline, NV adding a few thousand more), but the amount of snow that falls there some years is pretty massive, especially on the north side of the lake (where 500-600 inches is not uncommon - 1250 to 1500 cm).

[leftopolis]

wolf creek in CO averages over 450 inches a year. :banana:

but many mountain areas in the rockies are like that, and around the world as well.

(that's ~ 1150 cm)

Yeah, there are many such examples--even double that--in remote villages or mt. passes(link in post #1). What impresses me is when there's a large, well developed city, despite such a potential hinderance.

[Strange Meat]

that's another thing. it's amazing how much difference melting can make in terms of how snowy a place 'feels'.

[DonTallPaul]

Seems it would be a small courtesy on an international forum to show both the standard measurements and the ones Americans are still using (though I understand Americans aren't accustomed to giving consideration to this sort of thing).

It would be interesting to have the figures in the lists so that you could actually make comparisons with the American cities cited.

It ain't called the Imperial system because it designed to be friendly to those who don't use it :haha:

Google the number of inches and it'll convert it for you, its not that tough. I rarely notice people posting in meters giving considerations back so I wouldn't exactly complain a lot about it. Most of the 6 billion people in this world are self sufficient enough to figure it out on their own.

[Steely Dan]

since my first list without metric conversions caused much off-topic stupidity, i give you the following:

here's a list that I compiled from wikipedia data for US metros over 1 million people ranked by greatest average annual snowfall.

1. Rochester - 95.0" (243.1cm)
2. Buffalo - 91.1" (231.4cm)
3. Salt Lake City - 62.7" (170.7cm)
4. Denver - 61.7" (156.7cm)
5. Cleveland - 55.4" (140.7cm)
6. Minneapolis - 49.5" (125.7cm)
7. Hartford - 47.3" (120.1cm)
8. Milwaukee - 47.0" (119.4cm)
9. Chicago - 43.1" (109.5cm)
10. Detroit - 41.4" (105.2cm)

if anyone can find any snowier 1 million+ metros in the US, please post them.

now let's drop the nonsense and get back to talking about snowfall.

[plinko]

I wonder about Tehran and Santiago, Chile...

[Gordo]

I wonder about Tehran and Santiago, Chile...

Don't know about Tehran, but Santiago doesn't get squat. Maybe a dusting every other year. An hour or two away from Santiago is an entirely different story, of course.

[R@ptor]

Zurich (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zürich) is another sizeable(but well under 1 million) city which I'm not finding snow data on. It's certainly cold enough and precipitation high enough--to have some impressive snow totals. Anyone got a source?

Zurich is only covered by snow for approximately 15 days per year on average.

[R@ptor]

Oslo: 77.2 cm
Helsinki: 72.0 cm
Moscow: 46.0 cm

[mcfinley]

Oslo: 77.2 cm
Helsinki: 72.0 cm
Moscow: 46.0 cm

Is that right? For the entire year? That seem like really small accumulation for those cities, especially Moscow. I wouldn't think a city would propose cloud seeding if they're only getting 18" of snow.

[new.slang]

Im pretty sure it is Sapporo...
and wow rousseau you could easily look it up yourself. And most people have some idea of what an inch is so it doesnt mean nothing. And why are you saying it is too much for Americans to do? Have stupid demands and people will tell you what they think..

[VivaLFuego]

Is that right? For the entire year? That seem like really small accumulation for those cities, especially Moscow. I wouldn't think a city would propose cloud seeding if they're only getting 18" of snow.

As a generalization, North America is without parallel, save recently for East Asia, in the extent to which we expend energy and manpower to deal with the weather. Remember how the heat wave in Europe killed thousands of elderly in France with temps in the 80s and 90s (Farenheit), and German federal gov't employees were sent home in Berlin when the temperature reached.... 87F?

It might seem absurd to us here in the US, but we're just used to consuming a great deal of energy on heating/cooling homes and spending a great deal of public money on stuff like snow removal. 87F is very hot indeed if nowhere has air conditioning. And without adequate organizational and physical infrastructure to salt, plow, and haul snow, 18 inches a year is still plenty enough to shut a city's economy down for days at a time.

Keep all this in mind whenever someone is waxing condescendingly about how high US and Canada per capita energy consumption and carbon emissions are. Yes, automobile dependency is a component, but heating and cooling still dwarfs all.

[Wentworth]

Is Winnipeg really the coldest city in the world? (Population over 600,000)?

http://www.on.ec.gc.ca/weather/winners/highlights-e.html

[someone123]

Europeans don't generally need to worry as much about climate control because they mostly get milder temperatures both in winter and in summer - it is more like the West Coast of North America. The Pacific coast of Asia is more like the East Coast.

Heated sidewalks seem like a pretty good idea for certain areas where snow removal is difficult. The heating wouldn't need to be on all the time. I've heard it's also been used effectively in some Scandinavian cities.

Halifax doesn't really get that much snow, although it definitely gets significant snowfall every year. The total is measured quite a bit inland in the middle of a snowbelt where more than twice as much snow falls as right along the coast. Halifax also gets about 2/3 rain and 1/3 snow even in January and often gets winter temperatures above freezing so the snow cover amounts tend to be much smaller. It's common for a single storm to consist of mixed precipitation. Snow can pile up for a week or two, but it's also normal for the snow cover to completely disappear a few times during the winter. The city certainly isn't tropical but it doesn't have the traditional "Canadian winter".

[vid]

Is Winnipeg really the coldest city in the world? (Population over 600,000)?

http://www.on.ec.gc.ca/weather/winners/highlights-e.html

Even within Canada, Edmonton is colder than Winnipeg, and there are at least a dozen cities in Russia and China with more than 600,000 people that are colder.

Snow can't actually form when the temperature is too cold, so much of the interiors of North America and Eurasia is, in the winter, too cold for snow. :haha: Thunder Bay gets less snow than Toronto, but we're the ones with the more efficient system for removing the stuff. (Gigantic fleet of public and private snow plows and snowblowers at our disposal and a pretty large snow clean up budget.) We almost never have school closures due to snow, and the transit system has been shut down due to bad weather only twice in the past decade, and in both cases it was just one or two routes affected.

For those having trouble converting inches to feet/inches for comparison:

(These aren't exact, but they will give you a rough idea)

24 inches = 2 feet = 60cm
36 inches = 3 feet = 90cm
39 inches = 100cm = 1m
48 inches = 4 feet = 120cm
60 inches = 5 feet = 150cm
72 inches = 6 feet = 180cm
78 inches = 200cm = 2m
84 inches = 7 feet = 210cm
96 inches = 8 feet = 240cm

The one I think is more important to remember is 60 inches equals five feet and that's 1.5m. When you know that, converting is pretty simple. (Similar to 50 = 10 with F to C conversion.)

[Chef]

One of the first things that struck me when I moved from upstate NY to Minnesota is that the Twin Cities are cold as hell but don't get much snow in the winter. People here call 8 inches a blizzard, that is less than half a noreaster and is at best a big day of lake effect snow. Come the end of March I am happy we don't get much snow because the sun comes out and it melts quickly, a week later it is spring where in upstate NY it is just the beginning of mud season.

Winter in Minnesota is actually more tolerable than in upstate NY because when it is over it is warm.

[vid]

I didn't know Minneapolis got lake effect snow...

[Chef]

I was contrasting a Twin Cities snow storm to lake effect snow in upstate NY. I thought that would be obvious from context because Minneapolis does not get lake effect snow due to the fact that it is nowhere near the Great Lakes. Perhaps I need to spell it out a little bit more. Minneapolis also doesn't get noreasters.

[vid]

Oh I see what you were saying now.

It's 3am, you see.

[Spocket]

Even within Canada, Edmonton is colder than Winnipeg, and there are at least a dozen cities in Russia and China with more than 600,000 people that are colder.
Uh , no , Winnipeg is definitely colder than Edmonton. Maybe it's colder averaged out over the year but certainly the winters are easily colder in Winnipeg.
As for global cities by comparison , nope , Winnipeg is right up there. I'm in one of those other cities right now and it certainly doesn't feel any different from Winnipeg. Slightly warmer actually.

Certainly I don't deny that you're absolutely right that there are many places much colder than Winnipeg but as far as major cities go , as city that makes it onto globes and the like , Winnipeg ranks near the top.
In terms of snow , again , I hope people were paying attention when you said that looking for the coldest places on Earth will not indicate places with alot of snow. More likely to yield unsatisfying results.

Oddly enough , Beijing got a crazy amount of snow a couple of weeks ago. We only caught the tail end of that system here in Changchun but my friend sent me some pictures. I've never seen snow like that anywhere. Beijing is definitely not the kind of place one would expect to find great amounts of snow in.[/

[LMich]

since my first list without metric conversions caused much off-topic stupidity, i give you the following:

here's a list that I compiled from wikipedia data for US metros over 1 million people ranked by greatest average annual snowfall.

1. Rochester - 95.0" (243.1cm)
2. Buffalo - 91.1" (231.4cm)
3. Salt Lake City - 62.7" (170.7cm)
4. Denver - 61.7" (156.7cm)
5. Cleveland - 55.4" (140.7cm)
6. Minneapolis - 49.5" (125.7cm)
7. Hartford - 47.3" (120.1cm)
8. Milwaukee - 47.0" (119.4cm)
9. Chicago - 43.1" (109.5cm)
10. Detroit - 41.4" (105.2cm)

if anyone can find any snowier 1 million+ metros in the US, please post them.

now let's drop the nonsense and get back to talking about snowfall.

I never realized fully, how much less snowy Detroit is than most northern metros. It's at a kind of 'perfect' location to avoid such storms. The very southeastern part of the state on Lake Erie seems like a world its own when they are doing temperatures on the news.

I also laugh a little when I hear Chicago talk about lake-effect snow, and then think how hard Grand Rapids (which really is a tri-nodular +1 million metro, but that's a whole other thread) gets it just across the lake. They average over 70 inches a year, I think. Right on the lake, one of the nodes (Muskegon) gets 96 inches, but right down the road in Lansing, we get only about 50 inches because the storms dissipate quickly once they go inland.

Here's a wikimap showing the Great Lakes snowbelt:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/de/Great_Lakes_Snowbelt_EPA_fr.png/754px-Great_Lakes_Snowbelt_EPA_fr.png
Pierre cb (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Great_Lakes_Snowbelt_EPA_fr.png)

[vid]

Winnipeg, 700,000
http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/851/winnipeg.jpg

Edmonton, 730,000
http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/1588/edmonton.jpg

Irkutsk, 600,000
http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/1226/irkutsk.jpg

Krasnoyarsk, 950,000
http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/2155/krasnoyarsk.jpg

Novosibirsk, 1,425,000
http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/4945/novosibirsk.jpg

I only checked Russia.

[muppet]

...

[JordanL]

As a generalization, North America is without parallel, save recently for East Asia, in the extent to which we expend energy and manpower to deal with the weather. Remember how the heat wave in Europe killed thousands of elderly in France with temps in the 80s and 90s (Farenheit), and German federal gov't employees were sent home in Berlin when the temperature reached.... 87F?

It might seem absurd to us here in the US, but we're just used to consuming a great deal of energy on heating/cooling homes and spending a great deal of public money on stuff like snow removal. 87F is very hot indeed if nowhere has air conditioning. And without adequate organizational and physical infrastructure to salt, plow, and haul snow, 18 inches a year is still plenty enough to shut a city's economy down for days at a time.

Keep all this in mind whenever someone is waxing condescendingly about how high US and Canada per capita energy consumption and carbon emissions are. Yes, automobile dependency is a component, but heating and cooling still dwarfs all.

That's ridiculous. Ever visited the south in the US? Sure, most of the workplaces and houses do indeed have air conditioning, but they're also usually a lot more poor than the average American, and due to other parts of the weather, central air is usually unavailable, meaning that they don't adequately cool at all.

I've been to Louisiana in the summer... People there don't simply flip a switch and make the weather go away while other people in the world simply do without... When it's summer in Louisiana there is no escape from the heat.

I find it somewhat odd that you seem to be making the argument that Europeans as a group are either not affluent enough or too ecologically moral to use climate control inside their buildings, and so they simply suffer through it.

And 87F (30.6C) isn't hot at all if you don't have air. Maybe if you're used to living in Anchorage, but I live in Portland and even I don't have any problem with 87F. It has to reach about 105F (40.6C) before I really start to seek out air conditioning unless I'm laboring or working in the sun, in which case air conditioning wouldn't help me anyway.

The only case where I imagine that to be true is when the humidity is over 80% and the temperature is around 87F. That would be highly uncomfortable, but not "I'm not going to do any work at my workplace" uncomfortable.

And just to be clear, I'm not at all saying that German people or the German government were crazy to send people home at 87F. There's lots of factors that go into something like that, many I probably don't know about.

Here in Portland, about 2 inches of snow can shut the city down, and because people don't understand the circumstances, they often think that it's simply that we don't know how to deal with snow. In reality it is a mix of the rarity cause people to under-prepare (like not having chains) and our climate being very conducive to refreezing. Nine times out of ten, things get closed here because of 2 inches of snow because by nightfall, that'll be a thin sheen of plain old ice, and while snow is simply problematic to drive on, ice is simply dangerous.

Similarly, I imagine there are other factors that go into sending people home from work when the temperature reaches 87F. It could be something as simple as a mass of poorly cooled computer systems making keeping people at work pointless, or it could be under-preparedness.

But that doesn't make 87F unbearable.

[muppet]

I only checked Russia.

^try China too, notably Harbin (4 million, 10 million metro), Dec, Jan, Feb it averages -15C to -25 C, record -38C.

Also Urumqi (2.3 million), averages -10C to -20C, record -41.5

But Mohe (1.3 million) beats the rest

average lows in November or March are still -25, as for Dec, Jan, Feb, its -33 to -38C. The record is -52.3:

http://www.chinaweatherguide.com/mohe-weather.htm

[vid]

:previous: Exactly.

And Edmonton is colder if you base it on the airport in Nisku or Leduc or whereverthefuck it is. Warmer average high, but colder mean average and average low.

[eternallyme]

That's ridiculous. Ever visited the south in the US? Sure, most of the workplaces and houses do indeed have air conditioning, but they're also usually a lot more poor than the average American, and due to other parts of the weather, central air is usually unavailable, meaning that they don't adequately cool at all.

I've been to Louisiana in the summer... People there don't simply flip a switch and make the weather go away while other people in the world simply do without... When it's summer in Louisiana there is no escape from the heat.

I find it somewhat odd that you seem to be making the argument that Europeans as a group are either not affluent enough or too ecologically moral to use climate control inside their buildings, and so they simply suffer through it.

And 87F (30.6C) isn't hot at all if you don't have air. Maybe if you're used to living in Anchorage, but I live in Portland and even I don't have any problem with 87F. It has to reach about 105F (40.6C) before I really start to seek out air conditioning unless I'm laboring or working in the sun, in which case air conditioning wouldn't help me anyway.

The only case where I imagine that to be true is when the humidity is over 80% and the temperature is around 87F. That would be highly uncomfortable, but not "I'm not going to do any work at my workplace" uncomfortable.

And just to be clear, I'm not at all saying that German people or the German government were crazy to send people home at 87F. There's lots of factors that go into something like that, many I probably don't know about.

Here in Portland, about 2 inches of snow can shut the city down, and because people don't understand the circumstances, they often think that it's simply that we don't know how to deal with snow. In reality it is a mix of the rarity cause people to under-prepare (like not having chains) and our climate being very conducive to refreezing. Nine times out of ten, things get closed here because of 2 inches of snow because by nightfall, that'll be a thin sheen of plain old ice, and while snow is simply problematic to drive on, ice is simply dangerous.

Similarly, I imagine there are other factors that go into sending people home from work when the temperature reaches 87F. It could be something as simple as a mass of poorly cooled computer systems making keeping people at work pointless, or it could be under-preparedness.

But that doesn't make 87F unbearable.

87F (31C) is much more bearable in Oregon than in Louisiana because humidity there in the summer is usually MUCH lower. It isn't the actual temperatures that make the South uncomfortable in the summer, it is the humidity.

[urbanlife]

So basically this thread should be titles, cities that I would not want to live in...I am not much of a fan of snow...I like it for a day, then I want it to go away.

[Visualize]

Here is a heat index calculator.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/jkl/?n=heat_index_calculator


Example: 87F with 80% humidity actually feels like 103F

[vid]

I don't mind snow. It's the wind I hate. -30° isn't too bad if there is no wind, but as soon as it starts to blow even a little bit, it's a frozen hell. -30° and blowing snow feels like being attacked by a sand blaster. :(

Canada's Humidex (http://www.theweathernetwork.com/conversions/?product=conversions&pagecontent=index) makes heat and humidity seem even worse. 87°F is 30.56°C, and with 80% humidity, Environment Canada claims that feels like 44.43°C, or 111.97°F! Temperatures get very exaggerated. I believe Windsor's humidex record is about 56, around 133°F.

[leftopolis]

So basically this thread should be titles, cities that I would not want to live in...I am not much of a fan of snow...I like it for a day, then I want it to go away.

Heh-heh...spoken like a true Portlander!

Actually, it makes me think of a valid point wrt snow. Some bitterly cold places--with a reputation for ice and snow(such as Moscow, for example)--actually get very little snow. It's just so damn cold, that the snow they do get, tends to not melt for weeks or even months. Places like Portland--which some years might get the same amount of snow--overnight--as Moscow gets annually--don't seem snowy at all. It's not been unknown for that amount of snow to melt within 24-48 hours, leaving the area snow-free for the rest of the winter, potentially.

Sapporo's amazing annual snowfall, would be much worse in places where a bitterly cold winter might prevent any of that snowfall to melt, all winter long. As it is, the winter is mild enough that there's a good deal of melt that usually occurs throughout the winter.

[urbanlife]

Heh-heh...spoken like a true Portlander!

Actually, it makes me think of a valid point wrt snow. Some bitterly cold places--with a reputation for ice and snow(such as Moscow, for example)--actually get very little snow. It's just so damn cold, that the snow they do get, tends to not melt for weeks or even months. Places like Portland--which some years might get the same amount of snow--overnight--as Moscow gets annually--don't seem snowy at all. It's not been unknown for that amount of snow to melt within 24-48 hours, leaving the area snow-free for the rest of the winter, potentially.

Sapporo's amazing annual snowfall, would be much worse in places where a bitterly cold winter might prevent any of that snowfall to melt, all winter long. As it is, the winter is mild enough that there's a good deal of melt that usually occurs throughout the winter.

:haha: exactly, and to top it off I was raised in the south eastern part of Virginia which gets about the same amount of snow that Portland gets...thus you can understand why I am not a fan of it.

[leftopolis]

Zurich is only covered by snow for approximately 15 days per year on average.

I don't mean to sound ungrateful for your response to my question about Zurich...but it reminds me of my frustration at trying to find out what the snowiest city is...due to shoddy/useless data-keeping.

Much of the world appears to not have snow data based on amount of snow which falls annually. They gather data on average number of days/year in which snow falls. That is meaningless to me. To use the example of 15 days--what does that really mean? In Moscow it would mean 4-5 months worth of snow on the ground to deal with. In Vancouver, it might mean 2 metre snow drifts throughout each of the 15 days, but a winter which was 90% snow free! You see what I mean? 15 days worth of snow is a meaningless number without knowing how cold the winter is, or how much snow can potentially fall on one of those 15 days. Canada and the US appear to be the only countries which thoroughly/consistently compile the total snowfall numbers. Rant over.

A list like this: http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/online/ccd/snowfall.html ...simply does not exist for most countries of the world!

[leftopolis]

:haha: exactly, and to top it off I was raised in the south eastern part of Virginia which gets about the same amount of snow that Portland gets...thus you can understand why I am not a fan of it.

Yeah...I've got my own P-town snow story. I was living in Corvallis and commuting to architecture classes @ PSU. It was the storm of Dec, '06 if memory serves me. Corvallis had gotten a few cm at that point, so I got into the 4wd rig and made the commute--only to discover that Portland had metre-high drifts and that Portland State University had closed for the day! Of the 8 winters I ived in the area, 3 had no snow at all, 4 had flurries on several occasions which melted within hours or at most by the next day...Nevertheless, there are occasional blizzard type storms. One of the top one storm snow totals for all of Canada--is on Vancouver Island which is part of the same climate zone.

[VivaLFuego]

That's ridiculous. Ever visited the south in the US? Sure, most of the workplaces and houses do indeed have air conditioning, but they're also usually a lot more poor than the average American, and due to other parts of the weather, central air is usually unavailable, meaning that they don't adequately cool at all.

I've been to Louisiana in the summer... People there don't simply flip a switch and make the weather go away while other people in the world simply do without... When it's summer in Louisiana there is no escape from the heat.

I find it somewhat odd that you seem to be making the argument that Europeans as a group are either not affluent enough or too ecologically moral to use climate control inside their buildings, and so they simply suffer through it.

And 87F (30.6C) isn't hot at all if you don't have air. Maybe if you're used to living in Anchorage, but I live in Portland and even I don't have any problem with 87F. It has to reach about 105F (40.6C) before I really start to seek out air conditioning unless I'm laboring or working in the sun, in which case air conditioning wouldn't help me anyway.

The only case where I imagine that to be true is when the humidity is over 80% and the temperature is around 87F. That would be highly uncomfortable, but not "I'm not going to do any work at my workplace" uncomfortable.

And just to be clear, I'm not at all saying that German people or the German government were crazy to send people home at 87F. There's lots of factors that go into something like that, many I probably don't know about.

Here in Portland, about 2 inches of snow can shut the city down, and because people don't understand the circumstances, they often think that it's simply that we don't know how to deal with snow. In reality it is a mix of the rarity cause people to under-prepare (like not having chains) and our climate being very conducive to refreezing. Nine times out of ten, things get closed here because of 2 inches of snow because by nightfall, that'll be a thin sheen of plain old ice, and while snow is simply problematic to drive on, ice is simply dangerous.

Similarly, I imagine there are other factors that go into sending people home from work when the temperature reaches 87F. It could be something as simple as a mass of poorly cooled computer systems making keeping people at work pointless, or it could be under-preparedness.

But that doesn't make 87F unbearable.

Right. It's hard to work in the intense heat and humidity. This is why the American south was left in the dust economically until after the advent and proliferation of air conditioning. I don't see how what you're saying contradicts what I'm saying at all in fact you seem to just be agreeing with me:

1. Certain weather that seems normal in one place can shut down a local economy somewhere else if they are unprepared for it.
2. Intense heat and a lack of air conditioning is correlated with high concentrations of poverty.

So again, where do we disagree?

Of course Europeans are affluent, and if their economic well-being depended on them consuming a lot of energy to maintain their comfort, their per capita energy usage would look a lot more like that of Americans or Canadians.

[VivaLFuego]

Here is a heat index calculator.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/jkl/?n=heat_index_calculator


Example: 87F with 80% humidity actually feels like 103F

Just use the dewpoint as a measurement of how the humidity feels. Relative humidity is confusing because 80% means totally different things at different temperatures, and the heat index is subjective. But there's no escaping that a dewpoint of 70F feels like swimming through the air, or that a dewpoint of 50F feels pleasant. Of course, since dewpoint can't be higher than temperature by definition, this is why even 80% humidity in the dead of winter at 20F temperature is still bone dry and results in cracked/itchy skin, since the dewpoint is then somewhere around 15F, or desert-like.

[Dan Denson]

Just use the dewpoint as a measurement of how the humidity feels. Relative humidity is confusing because 80% means totally different things at different temperatures, and the heat index is subjective. But there's no escaping that a dewpoint of 70F feels like swimming through the air, or that a dewpoint of 50F feels pleasant. Of course, since dewpoint can't be higher than temperature by definition, this is why even 80% humidity in the dead of winter at 20F temperature is still bone dry and results in cracked/itchy skin, since the dewpoint is then somewhere around 15F, or desert-like.

You really explained this quite well. Not many people understand what relative humidity really is, and it's amazing some of the statements one hears. One of the most popular is "it was 90 degrees and 90 percent humidity" to describe that their location is more humid than someone else's (boasting). But that combination of temperature and humidity requires a dew point of about 87, if I remember correctly. At least at measuring stations in the U.S., I've never seen that combination. But like you said, even if the dew point is only 70, that still feels very humid, even if the humidity is way less than 90 percent. At a temperature of 90 and a dew point of 70, and using the conversion algorithm, one calculates a relative humidity of 52 percent. The doesn't sound impressive, but it's really quite humid and uncomfortable. It just doesn't make for very interesting conversation.

[ChiSoxRox]

Yakutsk has only 210,000 in the metro area, but its numbers are eye-popping:

Month......Av. high......Av. low
Nov..........-24 C/-12 F.......-33 C/-27 F
Dec..........-37 C/-34 F.......-43 C/-46 F
Jan...........-40 C/-39 F.......-46 C/-51 F
Feb..........-31 C/-25 F........-41 C/-42 F
March.......-14 C/7 F..........-30 C/-22 F

And the record low is -64 C. That's 84 below F! (Record high is 38 C/101 F!)

However, Yakutsk is a very arid city, located almost smack dab in the middle of the vast Siberan landmass.

Source: Wikipedia article

[CONative]

The thing about Denver's average is that the average is rarely what the city actually sees. Most years Denver gets less than 45 inches of snow (sometimes 30 inches or so for the year), but in other years (every 5 years or so) we will get a few big storms that dump 1-2 feet each. That adds many inches to the other regular snowfalls....which sways the average. I've seen many more years below 45 inches.

As said many times before, the good thing is that Denver's snow melts so quickly. Our last big dump that had over 10 inches was melted ALL the next day (except for some small patches on north facing buildings). You can rarely see that anywhere else, and you still see 70% of winter days in Denver with no snow left on the ground -- even with an average of 60 inches per year.

The same goes for winter temps in Denver. There are dozens of winter days over 50 or 60 degrees every year, but then we get these abnormal Canadian cold snaps that drops us down to 10 degrees for a high a few times each winter. These days bring down the average considerably. Nights are usually always cold in Denver though.

[lfc4life]

As a generalization, North America is without parallel, save recently for East Asia, in the extent to which we expend energy and manpower to deal with the weather. Remember how the heat wave in Europe killed thousands of elderly in France with temps in the 80s and 90s (Farenheit), and German federal gov't employees were sent home in Berlin when the temperature reached.... 87F?


i was in france during that heatwave of august 2003 and it was more than 80 degrees, well over 100 degrees in parts, it passed 3 digits a few days in paris and it was unbearable at night, it felt warmer at night than during the day and thats when the old people died

Auxerre recorded temperatures of 104 degrees or higher for 7 days in a row, even in chamonix (high up in the french alps) where i was for a few days it was over 90 degrees every day, the tgvs were also overheating

[muppet]

^yep something like 14,000 died in France, 18,000 in Italy. Overall nearly 40,000 died across Western Europe - its one of the least documented diasters of modern times, much due to the fact the scale of the dying didn't appear until months later when the excess deaths were added up. Even that figure doesnt key in many who died across Eastern Europe, where figures weren't compiled.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7e/Canicule_Europe_2003.jpg/400px-Canicule_Europe_2003.jpg

[MNMike]

Just a random interjection...The "it's too cold to snow" thing is a total myth. It isn't really ever too cold to snow, it just happens that air masses that are really cold are usually under big high pressure areas which usually equals clear skies. It can snow when its extremely cold, the setup is just not right for it most times.

[leftopolis]

Just a random interjection...The "it's too cold to snow" thing is a total myth. It isn't really ever too cold to snow, it just happens that air masses that are really cold are usually under big high pressure areas which usually equals clear skies. It can snow when its extremely cold, the setup is just not right for it most times.

Well, there is also the meteorological fact that warmer air holds more moisture. A storm in -40C/F, does not produce as much snow as a storm @ 0C/32F. It snows regularly in the center of the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica--yet it's in minimal amounts. The heaviest snows of those continents are in Southern Greenland and the Antarctic Penninsula--coincidently, those are also the warmest parts of the continents. In less extreme, inhabited northern latitude areas--record one storm snowfall totals rarely happen in the coldest month of January. Such records tend to happen in late fall or early spring, when it's not as cold. It's no coincidence that the snowiest one event totals for Canada, happen to be in the balmier maritime parts of the nation. From link in post #1:

Only four Canadian cities have ever had more than a half metre (1.6 feet) of snow fall in a single day. Amazingly, one of the largest dumps of snow on record hit Victoria BC, a city known for it's balmy winters.
Largest snowfalls in one day.
City cm Date
St. John's 68.4 April 5, 1999
Halifax 66.0 February 19, 2004
Victoria 64.5 December 29, 1996
London 57.0 December 7, 1977

Furthermore, Sapporo--the snow king without any peers(after 4 pages of posts!)--has mild winters. Again, that is no coincidence.

Your point that high-pressure/clear skies periods, tend to be when bitter cold happens--is well-taken--it's generally less cold when there's cloud cover holding in any heat. It does not negate the fact that colder storms hold less moisture--that's documented science and no myth. In fact, both are really working uinder the same principle: Bitterly cold air holds less moisture, thus clear skies and/or lighter snowfalls are to be expected.

[vid]

Vancouver gets more heavy snow events than Thunder Bay. We get snow more often but almost never more than 30cm at a time.

[someone123]

The big snowstorm in Halifax was in 2004 and was known as "White Juan" - it was named after a hurricane that struck a few months earlier. I was living there at the time and was basically snowed in for a couple of days.

Here's a picture of the snow banks from Radianman on flickr:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3245/3082711203_c7d19f13c8.jpg
Source (http://www.flickr.com/photos/radianman/3082711203/)

Somebody saved the associated forecast for that day. This one's from blue_william:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2415/1702136017_333704bc14.jpg
Source (http://www.flickr.com/photos/willmatheson/1702136017/)

[Spocket]

Just a random interjection...The "it's too cold to snow" thing is a total myth. It isn't really ever too cold to snow, it just happens that air masses that are really cold are usually under big high pressure areas which usually equals clear skies. It can snow when its extremely cold, the setup is just not right for it most times.
Oh , we know but there you go ... the two tend to go hand in hand. We know it's not "too cold" to snow , just that it almost never happens for the reasons you say. In effect though , it is the defacto reality.
Most people may not know exactly why it never snows when it's so cold but they are correct in observing that it pretty much never happens. It's not like this "myth" is unfounded even if the mechanism isn't properly understood.

[TonyAnderson]

Salt Lake City can really fluctuate due to its proximity to the mountains. Parts of the city are right up on it, while downtown is a little further off.

For instance, The Triad Center, a building downtown has recorded an average of 49 inches a year (since 1984). http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMAIN.pl?ut7606

The Hogle Zoo, located in Salt Lake closer to the mountains, has recorded an average of 76 inches (since 1990). http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMAIN.pl?ut7655

[dktshb]

Though Denver only gets about 60 inches of snow a year (152cm) I grew up in the suburb of Lakewood directly to south and west of Denver and we generally got twice as much snow. If it snowed a foot in Denver we would have 2 feet in Lakewood. This X-mas picture in 1982 we woke up to 38 inches of snow or 96 cm from just one storm. Denver only got a couple of feet from the same storm.

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a28/dktshb/img004.jpg

[arbeiter]

I know that it's not a city by any means, but Leavenworth Washington (where my grandparents and other extended family live) on the east side of the Cascades (but far enough in to still be alpine), they get about 75 inches a year. There's usually between 4-8 feet on the ground. In contrast, their summers often exceed 90 degrees in the day and it usually rains one day a month at most in the summer.

Seattle doesn't get much snow, but usually gets one crazy winter out of a dozen. Last winter, we had to have had at least 20 days out of the month of December with snow cover, and at least 7 or 8 with snowfall.

[Chef]

As far as "too cold to snow" goes we have had big storms in Minnesota because a front came through that warmed it up from -20f to -10f. Sometimes -10f is a warm front. Too cold to snow is a myth.

[vid]

That is -28 to -23. Unless there was an actual charted warm front, that probably wasn't a warm front. Temperatures can fluctuate like that naturally over the course of two days.

As for snowing at those temperatures, I tracked weather highs, lows and precipitation totals from 1 July 2007 to 30 April 2008, and that happened twice. About 2cm on January 30th, 2008 and less than half a cm on February 10th. On February 11th and 14th, it went up to -14°C and both days also received less than half a cm of snow.

High temperature:/Days with precipitation (total amount) from November 20, 2007 to March 10, 2008 (our winter period)
below -20°C / 2 (3mm)
-20 to -15 °C / 0
-15 to -10 °C / 2 (2mm)
-10 to -5°C / 7 (4mm)
-5 to 0 °C / 21 (34.5mm)
above 0°C / 6 (23mm)

-- / 38 (46.5mm, about 45cm of snow), out of 111 days that usually get around 120mm of precipitation (about 117cm of snow)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Vidioman/Sandbox2

[Chef]

It was a snow storm that came through in the early '90s probably around '92 or '93. It was the day after we set our all time record low record wind chill. It went from unbelievably cold to really cold but quite as bad in about 3 hours. It was a definite warm front, we got maybe 6 to 8 inches of very fluffy snow. Granted that was a pretty flukey storm. The temperature was well below 0f the whole time but the night time lows were about 10 degrees warmer after the storm (i.e. -10f rather than -20f).

[JManc]

@ drewcifer: which is worse? utica winters or minnesota winters. utica got damn cold but MN seems to take it to a whole other level of cold.

[Chef]

@ drewcifer: which is worse? utica winters or minnesota winters. utica got damn cold but MN seems to take it to a whole other level of cold.

Minnesota is colder and it starts earlier. Utica gets a lot more snow. Most of the Minnesota winter is the sort of winter someone from Utica is used to but there is usually one week in January that is just off the charts from the Utica perspective. Also the midwinter thaw in Minnesota is not nearly as warm.

On the other hand once all the snow melts winter is over, there is no lingering mud season. After the first week in April it is usually warmer and sunnier than in Utica. Spring and summer are nicer in Minnesota, on the whole I would call it a draw.

I say this from the perspective of the Twin Cities, northern Minnesota is much colder, it makes the Adirondaks look warm.

[JManc]

i hated the muddy season.

[vid]

Winter out here is very sunny and bright, even though the sun is only up for about 8 hours and never gets higher than a summertime 5pm. It's also very dry. I know people who are affected by it so badly that their hands crack and bleed. It's absurd.

[JManc]

but your summer days last how long? in upstate NY, the sun started to set around 8:30 so i would imagine TB's are even longer.

[vid]

5:55am to 10:05pm on June 20th. Our record high is 41°C (105°F) in early August. (Our hottest time of year, unlike most places, is the first half of August.)

We're geographically about two time zones behind, so 5pm is really more like 3pm. High noon is around 2pm in summer, around 1pm in winter.

[muppet]

Sapporo's Snow Festival:

http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/2424/ny7p.jpg
www.h7.dion.ne.jp

http://www.h7.dion.ne.jp/~ww99/today/20050213.jpg
www.h7.dion.ne.jp
http://web-japan.org/nipponia/nipponia34/images/feature/08_03.jpg
http://web-japan.org/nipponia
http://www3.pictures.gi.zimbio.com/Sapporo+Snow+Festival+2009+Open+Japan+B-7ITbAF9Zbl.jpg
www3.pictures.gi.zimbio.com
http://www.wayfaring.info/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/sapp4.jpg
www.wayfaring.info
http://questgarden.com/47/13/9/070516135658/images/Sapporo_Snow_Festival_0063.jpg http://madsilence.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/giant-dinosaur-snow-statue-at-sapporo-snow-festival.jpg
http://questgarden.com, http://madsilence.files.wordpress.com
http://veryveryfun.com/pics/sapporo-snow-festival/sapporo-snow-festival-1.jpg http://ursispaltenstein.ch/blog/images/uploads_img/59th_sapporo_snow_festival_2.jpg
http://veryveryfun.com, http://ursispaltenstein.ch
http://www.oneinchpunch.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/relics-of-egypt.jpg http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2196/2254748878_a32076c7c1.jpg
www.oneinchpunch.net, www.flickr.com
http://babibubebo.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/img_1412.jpg http://waddell.ci.manchester.ct.us/images/pokemon-sapporo.jpg
http://babibubebo.com
http://c2.api.ning.com/files/ubBdaoRCJw0Q56fqFFBB1eXwrxTuCRWRbchdpmm93IpxB4erxZD0BzkNE9tU5jxfTZbgC1AJRGamLAw1Y2R-Z-5u4p374dNu/sapporo_snow_festival06.jpg http://imagecache5.art.com/p/LRG/29/2919/JRFRD00Z/children-at-snow-carving-sapporo-snow-festival-yuki-matsuri-sapporo-hokkaido-japan.jpg
http://c2.api.ning.com, http://imagecache5.art.com
http://www.lifeinthefastlane.ca/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/snow_sculpture_73sfw.jpg http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3421/3247818912_9d7b51ab77.jpg
www.lifeinthefastlane.ca

[muppet]

Harbin Ice Festival:


http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/7921/lolys.jpg

http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/9158/lolrui.jpg


http://www.icseconference.org/icicse2009/Harbin-Ice-Festival-1-600x400.jpg http://ilearn-culture.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/harbin01.jpg
www.icseconference.org, http://ilearn-culture.com
http://images.theage.com.au/2009/01/08/342910/Harbin-Ice-Festival-15-600x400.jpg http://sonyaandtravis.com/images/China2007/Harbin%20ice%20and%20snow6.jpgx
http://images.theage.com.au, http://sonyaandtravis.com


http://cache2.asset-cache.net/xc/56557444.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=17A4AD9FDB9CF193CC300C081D9F4700FAD58FAB8178C38BB7E5D0D855A5AE2FF06BF04B24B4128C http://cache3.asset-cache.net/xc/56566407.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=17A4AD9FDB9CF193CC300C081D9F470049A4627119551D13DD95795FDB0BE7ACF06BF04B24B4128C

http://www.showchina.org/en/CultureNews/Life/200901/W020090107571532390557.jpg http://images.theage.com.au/2009/01/08/342906/Harbin-Ice-Festival-11-600x400.jpg
www.showchina.org, ]http://images.theage.com.au
http://www.buddhachannel.tv/portail/local/cache-vignettes/L450xH299/Harbin_ice_1-06115.jpg http://images.hollywoodgrind.com:9000/images/2009/2/harbin-ice-festival-2.jpg
www.buddhachannel.tv, www.hollywoodgrind.com


http://cache2.asset-cache.net/xc/56545224.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=17A4AD9FDB9CF193CC300C081D9F47004F3B181B79BD4602BD9229A6B568E92AF06BF04B24B4128C http://www.chinapicturespub.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/1198543568.jpg
www.chinapicturespub.com


http://rtoddking.com/images/chinawin2007/07012346.jpg http://whyismarko.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/harbin-ice-festival-1.jpg
http://rtoddking.com, http://whyismarko.com
http://icons-pe.wunderground.com/data/wximagenew/w/websterish/19.jpg http://images.theage.com.au/2009/01/08/342900/Harbin-Ice-Festival-5-600x400.jpg
http://icons-pe.wunderground.com, www.theage.com.au
http://cache3.asset-cache.net/xc/56558023.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=17A4AD9FDB9CF193CC300C081D9F4700FAD58FAB8178C38B913B6F834899ED51F06BF04B24B4128C http://cache4.asset-cache.net/xc/56545140.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=17A4AD9FDB9CF193CC300C081D9F47004F3B181B79BD4602414A66E2BFFA2540F06BF04B24B4128C
x


http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/12/24/article-0-02E2C7B2000005DC-662_634x399.jpg http://www.rtoddking.com/images/chinawin2005/050104cp.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk
http://www.thebeijingguide.com/harbin/Harbin_Ice_Festival_China_06.jpg http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-12/30/xin_2212023017407752809127.jpg http://www.neatorama.com/images/2007-01/harbin-ice-snow-festival.jpg
www.thebeijingguide.com, www.chinadaily.com.cn


http://rtoddking.com/images/chinawin2007/07012472.jpg http://cache3.asset-cache.net/xc/56566742.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=17A4AD9FDB9CF193CC300C081D9F470049A4627119551D13AAF1159A3E958458F06BF04B24B4128C
http://rtoddking.com
http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/974/lolwh.jpg


http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/classics/eos/EOS-1n/images/Harbin_Ice_festival_China.jpg
www.mir.com.my
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42419000/jpg/_42419291_harbin1_ap416.jpg http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/harbin1.jpg
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk, www.johncoulthart.com

[Evan]

This is so pretty I squirted a little bit O pee!

http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/2424/ny7p.jpg

[#10 Shirt]

One of the first things that struck me when I moved from upstate NY to Minnesota is that the Twin Cities are cold as hell but don't get much snow in the winter. People here call 8 inches a blizzard, that is less than half a noreaster and is at best a big day of lake effect snow. Come the end of March I am happy we don't get much snow because the sun comes out and it melts quickly, a week later it is spring where in upstate NY it is just the beginning of mud season.

Winter in Minnesota is actually more tolerable than in upstate NY because when it is over it is warm.

Winter in much of Minnesota is considerably colder and snowier than it is in the Twin Cities.

Winters in Minneapolis are downright balmy compared to say Ely, International Falls, Hibbing, or even Duluth. The highlands along the North Shore, called the "Sawtooth Mountains," do actually get a substantial amount of "lake enhanced" and "terrain enhanced" snow.

Though the arrowhead of MN doesn't get the big 200"+ annual averages that many of the "snowbelt" areas on the other side of the Great Lakes get, the comparatively colder temperatures ensure that what snow the area does get sticks around. This results in pretty consistent 24"-30"+ snow depths that will often last well into April.

Anyone know if there's any information out there on snow cover and snow depth for specific cities? That, to me, would almost be more telling of how "snowy" a city is. Denver, for example, gets more snow on average than many places in MN, but as someone already mentioned, it often melts within a few days of the storm.

[#10 Shirt]

Related to my previous post, here are snow depth maps for the state of Minnesota showing the BIG difference between north and south. (All maps shown depict snow depth during the first few weeks of March).

For those not familiar with MN, the Minneapolis-St. Paul area is just to the left of the 1-2" line on the maps' snow depth keys near the border with Wisconsin.

2009: http://climate.umn.edu/img/routine/snowmap/s090312.gif
2008: http://climate.umn.edu/img/routine/snowmap/s080306.gif
2007: http://climate.umn.edu/img/routine/snowmap/s070308.gif
2006: http://climate.umn.edu/img/routine/snowmap/s060309.gif
2005: http://climate.umn.edu/img/routine/snowmap/s050310.gif
2004: http://climate.umn.edu/img/routine/snowmap/s040311.gif