How much snow did Detroit get so far this winter?...

**Al Publican** · March-19-11, 02:21 AM

The average for Detroit as measured at DET [[Detroit City Airport) is, what, about 42 inches? I came back for a visit in Feb and caught a dose of it.

What is a good weather website to search rain, snow, and temp stats for various locales?

**MikeM** · March-19-11, 10:55 AM

53.4" at the NWS office in White Lake.
I don't think City Airport keeps climate records.

http://www.weather.gov/climate/index.php?wfo=dtx

**313WX** · March-19-11, 11:25 AM

67.4" at Metro Airport, making it the 6th snowiest winter on record. The average seasonal snowfall total is 44".

The 2000s decade has been one of the snowiest decades in Detroit's history. We only had one winter with below average snow [[2000-2001?) and 4 of the seasons made the top 10 snowiest [[this season, 2007-2008, 2008-2009 and 2004-2005).

This season isn't over yet though. We certainly could make it into the top 5 snowiest seasons on record [[only need 1.7" to do so). This may even happen as soon as mid next week.

February 2011 was also the 2nd snowiest on record, which brought us nearly half of our seasonal snowfall total alone so far.

It's been a strange La Nina though, since Tulsa out of all places saw their snowiest winter on record and many places in the south are above average for their seasonal snowfall. In addition, many places along the east coast also saw an above average snow season [[which is unusal in a La Nina).

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/dtx/cms.php?n=clisum

For City Airport and the SE Macomb/NE Wayne county areas in general, I never understood why that area tends to have lower snow totals than the rest of the region. I know someone in the aforemntioend area who does their own measurements and they haven't even cracked 60" yet for the season.

**Redleg81** · March-19-11, 02:38 PM

313WX Has got it right... It may not be over yet. As mentioned on Dyes before; Detroit's single day snowfall record was set on April 6th, back in the 1880's.... And for that reason the snow shovels stay at the front of my shed-- Just in case!

**Gistok** · March-19-11, 03:09 PM

As bad as this winter's snowfall was.... it just didn't seem that bad of a winter in total.... my worst recent memory of a winter was 1998-99.

Maybe the lack of extreme cold, and frequent melts made this winter seem less bad... although you wouldn't be able to tell from my home heating bills....

**313WX** · March-19-11, 07:59 PM

Originally Posted by Gistok

As bad as this winter's snowfall was.... it just didn't seem that bad of a winter in total.... my worst recent memory of a winter was 1998-99.

Maybe the lack of extreme cold, and frequent melts made this winter seem less bad... although you wouldn't be able to tell from my home heating bills....

There weren't a whole lot of melts either TBH.

According to ANOTHER person i know who keeps tabs on our records around here, this was also a top 10 winter for the # of days with 1"+ snowcover [[81 days, the record is around 90). I believe over 50 of those days features snow depths of 6"+. We really only had maybe 5 days tops of temperatures above freezing. We also saw didn't see any storms that tracked to the NW dump on the rest of the state while our region was on the rainy side of it. Yet two other people who also keep their own weather records [[one in Milwaukee and one in SW Michigan) other than the Groundhog Day Blizzard haven't seen any real snowstorm this season. Then of course Northern Michigan is looking at their 2nd below average snowfall season in a row [[SSM has only seen just over half of their average seasonal snowfall total).

The reason this winter seemed "bearable" was because November, December and Janaury didn't have a lot of active weather. February was really when everything came through like gangbusters.