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Biggest snowstorms for various Midwest cities


Hoosier

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Sometimes the biggest snowstorm for Chicago, Detroit, or some other city gets mentioned so I thought it would be interesting to do something bigger. I'm not totally sure if these numbers are right for a few places so correct me if I'm wrong. Wanted to put a few more on here but the info was not always easy to find.

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Fort Wayne probably stands out the most for relative futility, but places like DAY/IND/SPI/STL are also fairly low. However, looks can be deceiving. For instance, a band of 20-25" occurred very close to St Louis in the January 1982 storm and 24-32" fell about 50 miles from IND a band from southern IN ene into western OH in December 2004, which means that there is no real reason to think that 2 foot storms couldn't occur in those cities even if it's a low probability.

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The 27.2" near Iowa City doesn't look right. I don't think Cedar Rapids has ever officially had a foot in a 24 hour period and the biggest storm total wouldn't be any higher than the teens.

http://www.crh.noaa....stsnowstorms-us

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3) "THE MIDWEST SNOW STORM OF 1951"

March 10-14, 1951

A slow moving storm system brought a prolonged period of heavy snow to much of the Midwest. Hardest hit were Missouri and Iowa where snow fell

for as long as 92-100 hours! This slow moving storm system which had abundant moisture, produced 27.2 inches of snow at Iowa City which remains the largest snow storm accumulation in Iowa state history, with the bulk of the snowfall occurring on March 10

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Iowa City had 2.41" liquid in that March 1951 storm, so the 27.2" total is believable.

Here's an excerpt from the March 1951 Climatological Data publication for Iowa.

Precipitation began with glazing in southern and western Iowa, followed by more general snow, which continued without interruption for 90 hours in some sections and intermittently for 100 hours. Snow accumulated to depths of 22 to 27 inches in some northwestern and southeastern communities, 12 to 18 inches more generally throughout the central sections of the state, with only the extreme southwest reporting light snowfall.

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Biggest snowstorms on record can sometimes vary quite a bit over rather short distances. Think of it this way...if you took all of the storms to produce at least 2 feet anywhere in the Midwest and only drew the 24"+ contours on a map, it would be a bunch of narrow streaks with maybe a few exceptions. Certainly requires some luck.

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Biggest snowstorms on record can sometimes vary quite a bit over rather short distances. Think of it this way...if you took all of the storms to produce at least 2 feet anywhere in the Midwest and only drew the 24"+ contours on a map, it would be a bunch of narrow streaks with maybe a few exceptions. Certainly requires some luck.

Not to mention with these big powerhouse systems the heaviest snow typically occurs close to where it begins to change over to rain... Make those gradients even tighter

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