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11/27/2017

Wonder When Do We Normally See Our First Snow? Our First 4"+ Snow? Let's Discuss...

There is no question that snow lovers start to grumble this time of the year hoping for snow in our area. What you may not know is that we normally do not average our first measurable snow for another 2 weeks in the Louisville area. I wanted to share some of the snow climatology, so you can have some realistic expectations about what we normally see in our area.

 

When Do We Normally See Our First Measurable Snow Of The Year?

 

This is a pretty popular question in our area. While we average our first trace of snow in November, we normally don't measure our first snow of the year until December 7th. Of course we have had years where we had measurable snow earlier and later than this date, but statistically this is our average first measurable snow.

 

When Do We Normally See Our First 1" Snow Of The Year?

 

This is the time of the year that we start to talk about the real snow. As you know, an inch of snow in our area can cause some real problems. I think many that have lived in snow belts think that 1" is not much, but our area definitely has problem with any 1"+ snows. The average first 1"+ snow of the year for our area is December 26. Think about that for a second... we don't average our first 1" snow for the area until AFTER Christmas.

 

What Is Our Chance For A White Christmas

 

Since we normally don't see our first 1" snow of the year until after Christmas, this kind of brings up a good question... what is our chance of a white Christmas in Kentuckiana based on climatology. Children of the 70s and 90s probably remember many years with a White Christmas, but statistically speaking that is not the norm for our area. 

 

Probabilty Of White Christmas

 

As you can see, the chance is not good for Louisville. The chance of a white Christmas in Louisville is only about 5% to 10%. That means we have a 90% to 95% chance on average that we do not see a white Christmas. That may surprise some, but these are the stats.

 

When Do We Normally See Our First 4"Snow Of The Year?

 

 

This is really the stat that speaks to when we have our first "big" snow of the year on average. 4" of snow in our area can cause a whole lot of problems so this one is important. On average, we normally see our first 4" snow on January 19 or about half way through the meteorological winter. We absolutely can get some before, but it is clearly not the norm.

 

 

Any Snow Chances In The Near Future?

 

Honestly, I know that people will try to forecast snow 2, 3, or 4 weeks into the future. We all know those forecasts are rubbish. The bottom line is that we will likely average above normal through around the first week of December. There are some signals pointing toward us turning sharply colder after that, but that is still quite a long way off. To be honest, virtually all of the long range data shows that shift to sharply colder in the December 7th range and could last quite a while. It that verifies, we know that could open that door and it is something we will be watching.

 

 

 

Remember it is Winter storm season and if you want to be one of my storm spotters, you can join me on my facebook or twitter page. Just follow the link below and click "like" or "follow".

 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Marc-Weinberg/171330336238674#!/pages/Marc-Weinberg/171330336238674

 

http://twitter.com/MarcWeinbergWX

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