Good Question: When Do We Usually Get Our First Snow?
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- It's now one week from Thanksgiving and many us have only seen flurries in the air. The Twin Cities metro usually has at least one snowfall that sticks by now, but the warm fall has kept us mostly flake-free.
So, when do we usually get our first snow? Good Question.
According to the Minnesota State Climatology Office, the median in the Twin Cities for the first inch of snow is November 16.
"We're just a day or two behind, but most of the days fit twenty days either side of that," said Pete Boulay, a Minnesota State Climatologist. "So, 70 percent of the time, we're still in the ballpark if we get it in the next week or so."
The median for Duluth's first inch of snow is Nov. 4, and in International Falls it's Nov. 1.
"That surprises me," said one woman from Blaine, "I'm usually thinking it's Halloween, because I have to get my kids dressed and it's cold."
Boulay looked at the first snowfall data over the past 130 years and found no significant change in trends over time. But, he did find most of the first snowfalls melt before big winter freeze. In 2014, the first inch of snow was on November 10th and the temperature fell below zero on Thanksgiving Day.
The earliest first inch on record in the Twin Cities metro was September 26, 1942. The latest was January 21, 2005.
"So 117 days of earliest to latest, it can range quite a bit," Boulay said. "We get quite the theater of seasons."