Nathan Schiller

Last month I wrote about murder. This month I am writing about snow.

I love snow

I love snow. I love the way it falls from the sky and blankets the ground. I love how trees and fields and paths and cars look when they’re covered in snow. I enjoy skiing and sledding and snowshoeing and running in the snow.

There are things I dislike about snow. Dressing and undressing in snow gear is a hassle that clutters the home. In the city, snow cover quickly turns dark and dirty. The sound of packed powder crunching under boots is, to me, like nails on a chalkboard. Icy surfaces are beautiful but treacherous; snowy nature is often inaccessible or unforgiving. Avalanches, for instance, are visual marvels, but they will not think twice about killing you, unless you are Vin Diesel.

Lamenting the snow of my childhood

My wife and I have a recurring lamentation about snow. Two decades ago, our childhoods were filled with glorious snowy winters. Now we’re lucky to see it at all.

We’ve discussed this enough to wonder whether it’s true. Fortunately, the National Weather Service keeps monthly snowfall data. For the cities we grew up in, Pittsburgh and New York, the records date to 1880 and 1869. This data reveal that the average snowfall per season has actually been somewhat increasing from the 1990s to today.

Substantially increasing? Not especially. But definitely increasing.

So much for our theory.

Snow data for Pittsburgh and New York City

Except for one thing: my comparison is not intracity but intercity. This is my fifteenth consecutive winter in New York City; the past fourteen, it’s snowed an average of 31 inches here. My fourteen most recent winters in Pittsburgh, 1989 to 2003, saw an average of 38 inches of snow.

Indeed, Pittsburgh is a snowier city than New York, by 35 percent overall (5,395 total inches to 3,975, over 140 years, or 10 inches per year), though the Pittsburgh of my childhood was only 22 percent snowier than the New York City of my adulthood. But that Pittsburgh compared to this New York was a big winner in monthly head-to-head competition: lining up the 84 months, Pittsburgh had more snowfall 62% of the time. And variance matters, as well: since 1880, Pittsburgh’s had only one winter with less than 10 inches (1918-1919, nine inches), while New York has had 10, with two of them occurring in the past decade.

So I feel a bit vindicated.

Snow days create Hallmark movie nostalgia

But take all my data-based findings warily. The numbers are neat, but they’re not the point. Whatever I think about snow from then till now is tinged with nostalgia and bias. Experiencing snow as a kid is incomparably magical. The realization school is canceled, the hot chocolate, the energy of the sledding hill, the interminable cross-neighborhood journeys—that’s Hallmark movie territory.

The winters I was nine, 10, and 12 were three of Pittsburgh’s seven snowiest ever: 72, 77, and 75 inches, respectively. (My three heaviest NYC winters: 62, 57, and 51.) Judging by the monthly data, each of those had snow on the ground from December through April. That’s a real Northeast winter: when you must endure, when mother nature makes you earn spring and summer.

New York City snowstorms

Last year, it barely snowed in New York City. We felt deprived. This season seemed like more of the same. But, while writing this post, we had two huge snowstorms. Now the streets are piled high with drifts, the sidewalks slick with ice, the curbs covered in slush. But, in the parks, so much is still untouched.