On the morning of March 22 the official snow depth in Fargo Moorhead was 3 inches. At that point, we were likely only one or two days away from eliminating our winter snow cover with the exception of the drifts and large piles left from our frequent plowing these past few months. But instead of losing our snow cover, it snowed later that day and currently we have about one-half foot of snow on average covering the ground.
Today marks the 129th consecutive day with snow covering the ground in Fargo Moorhead. The average number of days with snow cover during our cold season locally is 103 days and not necessarily consecutively. In fact, most winters will have a break in the snow cover at some point, especially this time of year.
The record for the highest number of days with snow cover occurred during the winters of 1935-36 and 1978-79 with 155. The longest steak of continuous days was 153 straight during the winter of 1978-79.
Wasn’t the summer of 1935 and/or 1936 EXTREMELY hot and dry? Not that I was on this earth, but have heard stories about the summers. So, should we expect a pattern?
1936 was the 2nd warmest summer on record and had a heat wave without precedence in the records during July. The 1930s was the worse drought since records began, we are currently in one of the wettest periods since records began. Therefore, high soil moisture content would make such an event occurring this year highly unlikely. There is some history to a dry and above average temperature summer following a La Nina (our current situation), so that scenario has some credence. But after 20 years of mostly wet, it is hard to forecast dry. But by coincidence Rob Kupec and I were having a similar conversation this morning.
But of course, right now, I’m just focused on ending this miserable winter and hoping for the best with the upcoming flood.
I think I would just like to be optimistic for a change and say we should go for the record of 156 days of continuous snow cover. We do not seem to have any choice either way, so we might as well get something to brag about.