Toledo gets much less snow during the fall and spring than it used to

TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) – Does it feel like we just don’t get snow like we used to? It’s a feeling expressed by many, but does the data match the perception?

After hours of researching and plotting the snowfall for every month of the year in Toledo back to 1950, there’s a noticeable trend. However, the change has been most dramatic during the fall and spring.

There has been a slight decrease in annual snowfall over the past seven and a half decades: we now get about 10% less every year. Plus, if you look at the number of days per winter when we have at least one inch of snow on the ground, that’s dropped from 45 to 40. Another way to look at these changes over time is to break it down by season.

Meteorological Fall, which runs from Sept. 1 through Nov. 30, has seen the largest decrease in snowfall of all the seasons. We’ve dropped from an average of about four inches in 1950 to under an inch and a half today. That’s almost two-thirds less!

Now onto Meteorological Winter, which goes from Dec. 1 through Feb. 28, or 29 during leap years. The heart of cold season is when we get the bulk of our snow, and believe it or not, we average more today than we used to. We’ve gone up from around 25 inches to just shy of 28 inches, a fascinating 12% increase. It’s another sign that we continue to get our snow in bigger chunks, but less frequently.

As for Meteorological Spring, which lasts from March 1 through May 31, the decline has also been significant. We used to average close to nine inches in 1950, nowadays it’s closer to 4.5, that’s only half as much!

And in case you’re wondering about Meteorological Summer, which includes June, July, and August, we’ve never recorded sticking snow during those months. And September has only once recorded a trace.

All that data was sourced from the airport observation site in Toledo. Lately, we’ve been in what you might call a “snow drought” here in the Glass City. Over the past 1,000 days, we’ve only had two storms that brought us more than two inches.

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