All of these facts appear in The Snow Booklet by Doesken and Judson, U.S. Forest Service Alpine Snow and Avalanche Project, retired. See also our Questions and Answers about Snow and our Snow Glossary .
Snow continues to challenge weather experts across the country.
It is still very difficult to predict and is surprisingly hard to measure once it has fallen. Based on National Weather Service records for 1961 through 1990, Rochester, New York averages 94 inches of snow annually and is the snowiest large city in the United States. Buffalo, New York, is a close runner-up in terms of U.S. large cities with the most snow. Each year an average of 105 snow-producing storms affect the continental United States. A typical storm will have a snow-producing lifetime of two to five days and will bring snow to portions of several states.