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How cold the winter temperatures should be to have a place being said to have "a permanent snow cover"? Does the fact that snow falls in the place every winter and also remains on ground every winter but usually melts after few days make the place to have a permanent snow cover? Thus, do places like Louisville, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Washington DC, New York, Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Zürich, Ljubljana, Zagreb, Belgrade, Bucharest or Sofia have a permanent cover, as these cities satisfy the fact described above? And in some years these placed have snow cover lasing long, and in other years they do not have almost any snow.
I would say that the snowcover should typically be long lasting. Otherwise it's intermittent snow cover. Where I live would fit the description of permanent snow cover on most years, we had pretty consistent snow cover from early January to late February, despite it being one of the mildest winters on record.
However, places not much further south like Detroit or Pittsburgh are much less consistent imo, and the cities you listed, very much not, at least the American ones (not as familiar with the European ones). Most of those American cities only have snow cover for a few days per winter, and some can go the entire winter completely snow free (ex DC).
To me, "permanent" snow cover suggests there's snow on the ground all year. That would only be found in glacial areas.
Permanent during winter months would also be a high bar to reach, with very few cities able to manage this. Anchorage and Fairbanks, Alaska this year, for sure.
I guess you could look at cities with the average daily winter temperature below freezing to see which of them could potentially support a "permanent" snow pack during winter months.
Maybe “long lasting snow cover” or “consistent snow cover” are more appropriate terms.
And how could we define that? Most places have a warm period between every two cold periods that happen during winter. It gets cold and snowy for some days, after that it gets warmer for some days, then it gets colder and snowier again, and the cycle goes on. Sometimes the warmer days are not warm enough to melt the snow. When that happens, we can expect that there will be snow on the ground for at least 2-3 weeks straight or maybe for the entire winter.
The cities you mentioned don’t always have snow on ground for more than a few days, especially nowadays, maybe that used to happen more in the past.
We have a mean of -3C and never have consisistant snow cover, usually melts within a few a days to a week, unless we are in a polar vortex situation.
Yeah, I think much of Ontario south of Highway 401 and west of Pickering is like that, as well as a decent part of Lambton County.
This year, January had a mean of -4C up here, and we had relatively consistent snow cover, but February had a mean of -1.5C and snow cover was much less consistent. -3C is probably okay as a general rule, but in some areas it might be more like -4C or -5C means that result in consistent snow cover.
How cold the winter temperatures should be to have a place being said to have "a permanent snow cover"? Does the fact that snow falls in the place every winter and also remains on ground every winter but usually melts after few days make the place to have a permanent snow cover? Thus, do places like Louisville, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Washington DC, New York, Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Zürich, Ljubljana, Zagreb, Belgrade, Bucharest or Sofia have a permanent cover, as these cities satisfy the fact described above? And in some years these placed have snow cover lasing long, and in other years they do not have almost any snow.
To me, "permanent" means all year. Absolutely none of the US cities listed (not familiar with the European ones) come anywhere close to meeting that criteria. I'm in Anchorage Alaska and even we don't meet that definition. We can have complete snow cover from October to April but it does melt off eventually. And, we got over 11 feet of snow this winter.
Places that have true permanent snow cover are glaciated. We have lot's of those areas up here but they are mostly at higher elevations.
How cold the winter temperatures should be to have a place being said to have "a permanent snow cover"? Does the fact that snow falls in the place every winter and also remains on ground every winter but usually melts after few days make the place to have a permanent snow cover? Thus, do places like Louisville, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Washington DC, New York, Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Zürich, Ljubljana, Zagreb, Belgrade, Bucharest or Sofia have a permanent cover, as these cities satisfy the fact described above? And in some years these placed have snow cover lasing long, and in other years they do not have almost any snow.
All you need is a consistent temp in the 30s with significant snow. With that being said none of the cities you listed have permanent snow cover. NYC is lucky to have snow on the ground for 2 weeks. DC would be lucky to have 1 week of snow cover.
Your best best for consistent snow coverage is higher elevations in western North America and northerly latitudes.
Any city with a winter months having a mean of -3C and reasonable winter precipitation will see consistent snow cover through the winter.
I would agree.
I've read several times that the isoline of - 3 C (27.4 F), is normally the rough line where semi-consistent snow cover lasts through the winter months (or at least does not melt in a week or so).
When you really look at it graphically, it's really only the deep northern and interior areas of the northern USA/Canada that have consistent snow cover through winter. In the 4 winter months (Dec - March = 120 days), it's only the upper Midwest/Northern Plains (North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan), upper New England (Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire,), Northern NY near Lake Ontario, and the Intermt West that sees more than 100 days (3 months +) with snow cover on average. Except for northern Nevada, Utah, and CO, most places from 40 latitude south in the USA (Northern CA to NYC) have less than 4 weeks all winter with snow cover on average:
Washington DC (38 latitude) averages 9 days a year with snow cover - lol.
Last edited by simonusa3; 05-21-2024 at 07:25 AM..
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