Low Snow Winters

Since winter weather records began in 1883, Baltimore has NEVER has a winter void of snow. Only once did the city get less than 1 inch all winter. Only three times has the city has less than 2 inches of snow. If we don’t get any more this season, this would be the fourth winter.

The description ‘low snow’ winter takes on an expanded meaning. A ‘typical’ winter brings around 21 inches of snow to Baltimore. I use the term ‘Low Snow” for winters with less than half of that. I break it down to winters with under 5 inches of snow and between 5 and 10 inches of snow.

I dug through the 137 years of winter snow history in Baltimore and plotted out the results below.

18% Of Winters End Up As Low Snow


Seasonal Snow Under 5 Inches

Seasonal Snow Between 5 and 10 Inches

Low Snow happened 26 times, or 18% of winters. That might be more than many people expect to see.

Extreme weather of this sort has been displayed on occasion and documented since the 1800s.

I wrote an article I wrote a few years ago about snowless Decembers. I that I showed remainder of those winters were near or above normal snow about 50% of the time. There is still reason to keep your Faith in the Flakes*

Lowest Snow Winters in Baltimore

  1. 0.7″ in the winter of 1949-1950. *The ONLY time a full winter resulted in less than a single inch in Baltimore.
  2. 1.2″ in 1972-1973
  3. 2.3″ in 2001-2002
 

Under 5 inches of snow

Notice the winters fitting this category are evenly scattered throughout the record period since 1883.

Between 5 and 10 inches of snow

14 out of 137 winters fit this category.

  • Three winters since 2000
  • Two winters in the 1990s.
  • Seven winters have between 1883 and 1951.

Pairs of years under 10 inches of snow

There have been two years in a row with low snow occurring 4-Times since 1883. Twice those pairs were followed by one of the top snow winters

  • 1888-1889: 9.0″
  • 1889-1890: 4.9″
  • 1949-1950: 0.7″ *Lowest on record
  • 1951-1951: 6.2″
  • 2000-2001: 8.7″
  • 2001-2002: 2.3″

This was followed by out third highest snow total of 58.1″ in 2002-2003

  • 2007-2008: 8.5″
  • 2008-2009: 9.1″

This was followed by the most snow on record: 77″ in 2009-2010


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