Top 10 snowiest cities in the US is an intriguing issue for visitors and students at home and abroad. Snow develops in clouds that themselves are part of a larger weather system. Snowstorms organize and develop by feeding on sources of atmospheric moisture and cold air. Snowflakes nucleate around particles in the atmosphere by attracting supercooled water droplets, which freeze in hexagonal-shaped crystals. Every year throughout the country, snow blankets homes in a relaxing, white layer that silences the city sounds and signifies the beginning of the holiday season.
This blog selects and analyzes top 10 snowiest cities in the US comprehensively and detailedly with methodology, helping you make the best choice of your destination. Let’s examine top 10 snowiest cities in the US.
Top 10 Snowiest Cities in the US
- Average Seasonal Snowfall: 127.8 Inches
- Record Seasonal Snowfall: 192.1 Inches
Syracuse is a city in, and the county seat of, Onondaga County, New York, United States. Syracuse is the economic and educational hub of Central New York. It hosts a number of convention sites, including a large downtown convention complex, and is home to prominent institutions such as Syracuse University, SUNY Upstate Medical University, SUNY ESF, and Le Moyne College. Formerly a manufacturing center, Syracuse’s economy has faced challenges over the past decades as industrial jobs have left the area. The number of local and state government jobs also has been declining for several years.
Syracuse is known for its high snowfall, 115.6 inches on average. Syracuse receives the most annual average snow of any metropolitan area in the United States. Syracuse usually wins the Golden Snowball Award among Upstate cities. Its record seasonal snowfall so far is 192.1 inches during the winter of 1992 – 1993, while the snowiest calendar month was January 2004, with 78.1 inches accumulated. The high snowfall is a result of the city receiving both heavy snow from the lake effect of nearby Lake Ontario and nor’easter snow from storms driven from the Atlantic Ocean. Snow most often falls in small, almost daily doses, over a period of several days. Larger snowfalls do occur occasionally, and even more so in the northern suburbs.
Top 2. Erie, Pennsylvania
- Average Seasonal Snowfall: 104.3 Inches
- Record Seasonal Snowfall: 166.3 Inches
Erie is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. Erie is Pennsylvania’s primary access point to Lake Erie, the Great Lakes, and the Saint Lawrence Seaway. Erie is the corporate headquarters of the Erie Insurance Group and Marquette Savings Bank. Lord Corporation was founded and has major operations in Erie. Erie is home to several professional and amateur performing arts groups.
Erie is located in the snow belt that stretches from Cleveland to Syracuse and Watertown. Winters are moderately cold, with heavy lake-effect snow, but also with occasional stretches of mild weather that cause accumulated snow to melt. The city experiences a full range of weather events, including snow, ice, rain, thunderstorms, and fog. Erie is one of snowiest places in the United States, averaging 78.7 inches. On December 24 and 25, 2023, Erie received 53 inches of snowfall, breaking a record for the largest two-day snowfall anywhere in Pennsylvania.
- Average Seasonal Snowfall: 102 Inches
- Record Seasonal Snowfall: 161.7 Inches
Rochester is a city in the U.S. state of New York and the county seat of Monroe County. The city was one of the United States’ first boomtowns, initially due to the fertile Genesee River valley which gave rise to numerous flour mills, and then as a manufacturing center, which spurred further rapid population growth. Rochester has also played a key part in US history as a hub for social and political movements, especially abolitionism, and the women’s rights movement. Rochester is also known for its culture, in particular, the Eastman School of Music, one of the most prestigious conservatories in the world, and the Rochester International Jazz Festival anchor a vibrant music industry.
Rochester is very cloudy and overcast in winter. Rochester normally receives heavy snow in winter primarily lake effect snow resulting from its location on the southern shores of Lake Ontario, ranking among the snowiest large cities on earth and occasionally setting records for annual snowfall among large US metros. The 30 – year annual average snowfall is just above 100 inches. Spring sees plentiful rain with the rising temperatures, and occasional late snowstorms depending on the year.
- Average Seasonal Snowfall: 95.4 Inches
- Record Seasonal Snowfall: 199.4 Inches
Buffalo is a city in the U.S. state of New York and the county seat of Erie County. It lies in Western New York at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River on the Canada – United States border. The Erie Canal was the impetus for Buffalo’s economic growth as a transshipment hub for grain and other agricultural products headed east from the Midwest. Later, manufacturing of steel and automotive parts became central to the city’s economy. Buffalo is home to over 20 theater companies, with many centered in the downtown Theatre District.
Buffalo has a humid continental climate and Lake – effect snow is characteristic of Buffalo winters, with snow bands producing intense snowfall in the city and surrounding are depending on wind direction off Lake Erie. The Blizzard of 1977 resulted from a combination of high winds and snow which accumulated on land and on the frozen Lake Erie. It is one of snowiest cities in the United States.
- Average Seasonal Snowfall: 92.8 Inches
- Record Seasonal Snowfall: 152.0 Inches
Boulder is a home rule city in and the county seat of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. With a population of 112,280 at the 2024 census, it is the most populous city in the county and the 12nd – most populous city in Colorado. Boulder is the principal city of the Boulder metropolitan statistical area and is part of the Front Range Urban Corridor. Boulder is located at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and is 25 miles northwest of the Colorado state capital of Denver. Boulder is a college town, hosting the University of Colorado Boulder, the flagship and largest campus of the University of Colorado system as well as numerous research institutes.
Winter conditions range from generally mild to the occasional bitterly cold. Because of orographic lift, the mountains to the west often dry out the air passing over the Front Range, shielding the city from precipitation in winter, though heavy snowfalls may occur. Snowfall averages 88 inches per season.
- Average Seasonal Snowfall: 90.1 inches
- Record Seasonal Snowfall: 153.9 inches
Flagstaff is the county seat of Coconino County, Arizona, in the southwestern United States. The city remains an important distribution hub for companies such as Nestlé Purina PetCare, and is home to the U.S. Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station, the U.S. Geological Survey Astrogeology Science Center, and Northern Arizona University. Flagstaff has a strong tourism sector, due to its proximity to Grand Canyon National Park, Oak Creek Canyon, the Arizona Snowbowl, Meteor Crater, and Historic Route 66.
Snowfall has been lower during the extended dry period though Flagstaff set a new record for its highest daily snowfall on February 21, 2024 with 35.9 inches and was still ranked as the United States’ third-snowiest city in 2024. Flagstaff has consistently been among the snowiest cities in the United States and snow and winter culture is argued by Michael Weeks to be a large part of Flagstaff’s identity. The Arizona Snowbowl is a major attraction, though it has had to make artificial snow during warmer seasons, and the city tried to launch a bid to be the host city of the 1960 Winter Olympics. The maximum daily snow cover was 83 inches on December 20, 1967, although the mean maximum for a full winter is only 20 inches.
Top 7. Anchorage, Alaska
- Average Seasonal Snowfall: 77.9 Inches
- Record Seasonal Snowfall: 134.5 Inches
Anchorage is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Alaska and is on a strip of coastal lowland and extends up the lower alpine slopes of the Chugach Mountains. Anchorage’s largest economic sectors include transportation, military, municipal, state and federal government, tourism, corporate headquarters and resource extraction. Located next to Town Square Park in downtown Anchorage, the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts is a three-part complex that hosts numerous performing arts events each year.
Average January low and high temperatures are −12 to −5 °C with an average winter snowfall of 75.5 inches. The 2023 – 2024 winter had 134.5 inches, which made it the snowiest winter on record, topping the 2022 – 2023 winter with 132.8 inches. The coldest temperature ever recorded at the original weather station at Merrill Field on the East end of 5th Avenue was −38.9 °Con February 3, 2024.
Top 8. Duluth, Minnesota
- Average Seasonal Snowfall: 90.2 Inches
- Record Seasonal Snowfall: 140.1 Inches
Duluth is a port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of St. Louis County. Located on Lake Superior in Minnesota’s Arrowhead Region, the city is a hub for cargo shipping. Duluth forms a metropolitan area with neighboring Superior, Wisconsin, called the Twin Ports. Duluth is on the north shore of Lake Superior at the westernmost point of the Great Lakes. It is the largest metropolitan area, the second – largest city, and the largest U.S. city on the lake. Duluth is accessible to the Atlantic Ocean, 2,300 miles away, via the Great Lakes Waterway and St. Lawrence Seaway. The Port of Duluth is the world’s farthest inland port accessible to oceangoing ships and is the largest and busiest port on the Great Lakes. Duluth is a popular Midwest tourist destination. The city is home to the Great Lakes Aquarium, a freshwater aquarium.
Duluth has a humid continental climate slightly moderated by its proximity to Lake Superior. Winters are long, snowy, and very cold, normally seeing maximum temperatures remaining at or below 0 °C on 100 days the second-most of any city in the contiguous US behind International Falls, falling to or below −18 °C on 38 nights and bringing consistent snow cover from late November to early April. Winter storms that pass south or east of Duluth can often set up easterly or northeasterly flow, which leads to occasional upslope lake-effect snow events that bring 1 foot or more of snow to the city while areas 50 miles inland receive considerably less. The average annual snowfall is 90.2 inches. The lake steams in the winter when moist, lake – warmed air at the surface rises and cools, losing some of its moisture – carrying capacity.
- Average Seasonal Snowfall: 77.6 Inches
- Record Seasonal Snowfall: 132.2 Inches
Grand Rapids is a city in and county seat of Kent County, Michigan, United States. Located 161 miles northwest of Detroit, Grand Rapids is situated along the Grand River approximately 25 miles east of Lake Michigan, it is the economic and cultural hub of West Michigan. A historic furniture manufacturing center, Grand Rapids is home to five of the world’s leading office furniture companies and is nicknamed “Furniture City”. As a result of the numerous micro and craft breweries, many with notable reputations nationally and globally, Grand Rapids is also known as “Beer City USA”. The city and surrounding communities are economically diverse, based in the health care, information technology, automotive, aviation, and consumer goods manufacturing industries, among others.
Even though it is in the middle of the continent, the city experiences some maritime effects due to its location east of Lake Michigan, including a high number of cloudy days during the late fall and winter. The city averages 75.6 in of snow a year, making it one of the snowiest major cities in the United States. The area often receives quick and sudden lake effect snowstorms, producing significant amounts of snowfall.
- Average Seasonal Snowfall: 72.9 Inches
- Record Seasonal Snowfall: 132.9 Inches
Worcester is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of Massachusetts and the 114th most populous city in the United States. Because it is near the geographic center of Massachusetts, Worcester is known as the “Heart of the Commonwealth”, a heart is the official symbol of the city. Worcester is the historical seat of Worcester County. Modern Worcester is known for its diversity and large immigrant population, with significant communities of Vietnamese, Brazilians, Albanians, Puerto Ricans, Ghanaians, Dominicans, and others. Worcester is the principal city of Central Massachusetts, and is a regional hub of government, industry, and transportation hub.
Worcester is known for being particularly snowy in the cold months, sometimes even experiencing intense autumn blizzards. The city averages 48.07 inches of precipitation a year, as well as an average of 64 inches of snowfall a season, receiving far more snow than coastal locations less than 40 miles away. Massachusetts’ geographic location, jutting out into the North Atlantic, as well as Worcester’s elevation relative to the surrounding terrain, makes the city very prone to Nor’easter weather systems that can dump heavy snow on the region. Extreme winters have brought up to 120 inches of snowfall, as happened in 2024. In late January 2024, a blizzard traversed over the city as it shed almost 32 inches of snow. This was the highest single-day snowfall total for anywhere in Massachusetts since data collection began in 1892.
Factors That Influence Snowiest Cities in the US
Snowfall is one of the dominant water resources in the mountainous regions and is closely related to the development of the local ecosystem and economy. Snowfall predication plays a critical role in understanding hydrological processes and forecasting natural disasters. There are some factors that influence snowiest cities in the US.
- The air mass is very cold
The main factor that increases the chance of snowfall is the presence of an atmospheric depression of polar origin, accompanied by a very cold air mass in the upper atmosphere, so that the air mass reduces the temperature of the atmosphere.
- The amount of moisture the air carries
The second important factor that increases the chance of snowfall is the amount of moisture that the air carries, and humidity is important for clouds to form, the extremely cold air mass must pass over warm surface on the sea.
- The direction of movement of the air mass
The direction of the air mass movement and the air depression contribute to the amount of moisture that it will carry.
Fun Things in Snowiest Cities in the US
- Build Snowmen
Few things are better than waking up to freshly fallen snow outside your window just waiting to be transformed into snowmen.
- Make Snow Lanterns
The days around Christmas and New Year are the darkest of the year, and it’s super cozy to sit inside with a cup of hot cocoa and look out at the snow lanterns glowing in the darkness.
- Experience Downhill Slopes on Sleds
Playing with sledges in the snow is something many of us associate with the youngest members of the family, but the truth is that it’s an activity that both young and old can enjoy tremendously.
- Ski Trips
Gorgeous winter weather, snow-covered mountains, and beautiful ski conditions.
Methodology of Snowiest Cities in the US
This list contains annual snowfall data for major cities with over 75,000 residents according to the 2024 census. For our purposes of determining the “snowiest” cities, this list will focus on cities that receive the highest average seasonal snowfall. Some cities may see more days with measurable snowfall but lower average totals, so we won’t include them. Additionally, this list will focus on the highest seasonal snowfall totals, not annual.
List of Snowiest Cities in the US
- Top 1. Syracuse, New York
- Top 2. Erie, Pennsylvania
- Top 3. Rochester, New York
- Top 4. Buffalo, New York
- Top 5. Boulder, Colorado
- Top 6. Flagstaff, Arizona
- Top 7. Anchorage, Alaska
- Top 8. Duluth, Minnesota
- Top 9. Grand Rapids, Michigan
- Top 10. Worcester, Massachusetts
Conclusion
Top 10 snowiest cities in the US are selected and analyzed comprehensively and detailedly in this blog with methodology, helping you make the best choice of your destination.
After you have decided to pay a visit to snowiest cities in the US, accommodation is the first and foremost thing. uhomes.com is a platform which provides you with affordable, reliable and comfortable student apartments in US.
FAQ
Syracuse is known for its high snowfall, 115.6 inches on average. Syracuse receives the most annual average snow of any metropolitan area in the United States. Syracuse usually wins the Golden Snowball Award among Upstate cities.
Aomori City. The snowiest city in the world, with an average of 26 feet — or eight meters — of snowfall every year, is Aomori City in Aomori Prefecture, Japan.
Coldest States
Alaska.
North Dakota.
Maine.
Minnesota.
Wyoming.
Montana.
Vermont.
Wisconsin.
New York City. Taking the crown as the coolest city in the U.S. and Canada is New York City, with a score of 72.68 out of 100.
Phoenix, Arizona. Phoenix is the hottest city in the U.S. due to its extreme summer temperatures. The city gets so hot because of its location in the rapidly warming Sonoran Desert, incredible amount of sunny days, and the urban heat island effect.
California. What state has the best weather? Many coastal cities in southern and central California like San Diego and Santa Barbara have warm weather between 60 and 85 degrees with little rainfall, making California the state with the best weather.
