Let it Snow!
Are you dreaming of a White Christmas?
Some of the first snow of winter is arriving in the UK, and we’re blessed to be one of the places in the world which benefit from beautiful snowy scenes most winters
Snow is solid precipitation that forms as ice crystals when temperatures are close to or below freezing. The best conditions for snow are when surface temperatures range from about 28°F to 32°F (-2.2°C to 0°C)
In the UK, we receive a small amount of snow every year - it snows for 23.7 days on average, enough to enjoy it, but not so much that it takes over our lives (although anyone using our transport network may disagree). It snows a lot more in Scotland (the Cairngorms gets 76.2 days) and less in Southern England (Cornwall is only 7.4 days)
But this is still nothing compared to the places on Earth that get the most, or least, snow
How much snow is there globally?
The majority of snow is found in the northern hemisphere. It’s estimated that over 46 million square kilometres, or one third of the world’s total landmass (this is equivalent to 2.7x the size of Russia), is covered with snow
It’s very difficult to know exactly how much snow there is on Earth at any one point in time, but there are some statistics on how much snow usually falls in certain places
Which countries have (or don’t have) any snow?
As a rule of thumb, the further north you go, the snowier the conditions are likely to be. But there are some places nearer the equator that get snow in their more mountainous regions
Overall, there are 60 countries that are expected to get some level of snow in a typical year. These include almost all countries in Europe, plus 14 nations in Asia (mostly North and East Asia) and a couple of others across the Americas and Oceania
Another group of 32 countries receive snowfall but only in select locations that are particularly mountainous or elevated, such as:
- 16 nations in Asia. This includes the United Arab Emirates which only experienced their first ever snowfall in December 2004
- 8 African countries that have tall mountain ranges like Tanzania (Mt. Kilimanjaro), Kenya (Mount Kenya) or Rwanda (Rwenzori Mountains)
- 6 places in the Americas, including a number of South American countries around the Andes
This leaves c. 100 countries that almost never experience any snow, mostly found in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific islands
Where is the snowiest place on Earth?
Mount Baker Ski Area in Washington State, USA, is considered the snowiest place in the world. It receives, on average, 641 inches of snow each year and recorded its snowiest season in 1998–99 when 1141 inches fell, a world record
To put all of this in context, 1141 inches is almost 30 metres of snow (if it fell all at once), the same size as a 10 story building
In second place is Mount Rainer, also in Washington, followed by Niseko in Hokkaido, Japan, with 590 inches per year. Northern Japan often receives more snowfall than any other country, particular between December and February
Sapporo, on the northern island of Hokkaido, gets more snow than any other major Japanese city - an average depth of 67.8 inches over the course of 112 winter days per year
Some of the other snowiest locations include:
- places further north such as Glacier National Park, Canada (590 inches) and Alyeska in Alaska, USA (511 inches)
- more southern places that happen to receive a lot of snow. For example, Alta in Utah, USA, receives 524 inches despite most of the state being desert and Kirkwood Mountain in California, USA, receives 472 inches
To put this in comparison, London typically has 16 days per year when it snows, resulting in 18.4 inches (half a metre if it all landed at once) and Tokyo, in southern Japan, only gets an average of 1 inch of snow per year. And even these small amounts of snow don’t settle because of something called the city effect
How is climate change impacting snow?
A hotter climate impacts snow in a few ways. As you can imagine, snow becomes less common as the world warms, but it also increases moisture levels which then increase the chances of snow where temperatures are still cold enough
For example, analysis across the United States showed that average snowfall decreased by 0.2% per year between 1930 and 2007. While this doesn’t sound steep, the decline has been steepest in the snowiest parts of the country (over 1% per year in Washington State)
However, the US has still experienced extreme snow events in its recent histoy. One of the worst were two back-to-back storms in Feb 2010 which were dubbed Snowmageddon after 30 inches of snow fell in around a week. In some places, like Philadelphia, this reached 79 inches
Snowmageddon is believed to have been caused by warmer than usual sea surface temperatures (because of climate change) which increased moisture levels in the cold winter air (and hence, more snow)
This is a huge amount of snow, considering that places like the Mount Baker Ski Area (the snowiest place on Earth) normally gets between 25-50 inches per week
Check out more GoodStats about Nature and the Earth:
- National Beauty: Celebrating America’s incredible countryside
- Sun, sea and stats! You sun of a beach…
- It’s getting hot in here, and this is having a devastating affect on the planet
