If you enjoy the snow and don’t live somewhere that gets it in the winter an easy solution would be to move to the mountains where you are just about guaranteed snow. Of course there are exceptions even to this because it would depend on where the mountains are located. If they are too far south or not high enough in elevation you may never see the white stuff. So just where should you move to for a guarantee of a white Christmas every year here in the United States? Or if you are not a big fan of snow just where should you stay away from in your case?
*Data Collected*
There is no single part of the United States that has the distinction of being the snowiest. The snowiest small cities and large cities alike are spread out all over the United States and trying to nail down the snowiest city in the States is about as slippery as the white stuff itself. Different organizations use different criteria and even different locations to record their data. For example in the city of Spokane, Washington their weather data is collected out at the airport. The airport is located out in a large open field area and the weather out there is much different to the weather actually seen in downtown Spokane, but the weather at the airport is what is used for record keeping. Also Alaska is not included in these totals or they would dominate all top slots for snowiest cities no matter the size, the cities that are covered are only in the lower 48.
* Snowiest Small Cities*
For cities with smaller populations the top snow fall numbers are held by Blue Canyon, California (near Truckee) with 240.3 inches (http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/online/ccd/snowfall.html. Marquette, Michigan (141 inches) and Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan (117.4) come in 2nd and 3rd respectively for snowiest cities. Cities from New York, Maine, California, Wyoming, Arizona, Oregon, and Michigan round out the top ten. As you can see the honor of snowiest is all over the country by the states that are listed on here.
*Snowiest Large Cities*
If you are looking at the larger cities (populations over 440, 000) where large amounts of snow fall effect far more people then in the smaller cities, Denver Colorado tops the list with 60.3 inches of snow. You can see that the larger cities do not get quite as much snow as the cities that topped the list in the category above but perhaps this is why the populations grew more for these now larger cities.
Also as pointed out above that there was no pattern for where the snowiest cities were for the smaller cities, for the larger cities this is not true. The only city in the western United States that made the list for the larger cities is Denver; all of the other cities on the list are located in the east. One very good explanation for this is that the population of the United States has a higher concentration in the east. If you have ever looked at a satellite picture of the U.S. that was taken at night you will see that most of the light is coming from the east, with very few large sources of light in the west.
*2009 – 2010 Winter Records*
So far for this winter’s records (as of December 29, 2009) the cities with a population of 100,000 or more is lead by Fort Collins, Colorado. They are topping this winter’s list with a snowfall total of 52.9 inches according to Golden Snow Globe (http://goldensnowglobe.com/current-top-10-snowiest-cities/) who keeps track of the snowiest cities each year. Fort Collins is in local company this year with number two on the list being Lakewood, Colorado and number three being Denver, Colorado.
If you are trying to stay away from states with high snow falls, Colorado would be the one to avoid this year. Also avoiding the states that surround the great lakes would be advisable as 4 of the remaining 7 on the list are located near the great lakes.
