Cleveland's Winter: We're #1, we're #1! - Forbes Magazine

Repost from Forbes.com


America's Worst Winter Weather Cities
Tim Kiladze, 02.05.10, 5:00 PM ET

Washingtonians might not want to put away their snow shovels just yet. That's because a second storm is expected to head their way later this week.

Though blizzards along the mid-Atlantic occur most every winter, strange weather patterns are happening in unlikely places across the U.S. Late last month Arizona got hit by record snowfall and rain, and Floridians suffered through an unusually cold and wet January.

Top Ten: Worst Weather Cities

For those bracing for a snowstorm, it can be useful to remember that other cities more often have it worse than your own. Those likely include Detroit, which each year gets an average of 41 inches of snow; Minneapolis, with an annual average temperature of 45 degrees; and rainy New York City. Its residents deal with just under 50 inches of rain a year.

Behind The NumbersIn compiling our list, we measured weather patterns in the country's fifty largest cities, or Incorporated Places and Minor Civil Divisions as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau. This data was provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and tracks average annual temperature, total precipitation in inches and total snowfall in inches. The temperature and precipitation data was calculated over a 30-year period from 1971 to 2000--NOAA's most recent figures because of its decadal calculation schedule--and the snowfall levels included up to 2008.

There are two things to note about our data. First, we acknowledge that global warming may have caused temperatures to rise since 2000, but it is unlikely that individual cities have been affected by drastically different percentage changes, or that the trend is unaccounted for in the thirty year analysis. Second, Virginia Beach, the nation's 42nd most populous city, has been excluded because NOAA does not track its weather.

Chilly CitiesOur measures show that those in Cleveland experience the worst winter months. Located on the south shore of Lake Erie, the home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has relatively mild summers but its winters require endurance. Cleveland gets hit by lake-effect snow, averaging almost 60 inches every winter and its frigid winters help produce an average annual temperature of only 50 degrees, 10 degrees below the 50-city average.

Boston, ranked just below Cleveland. It has hot summers, but the cool northern air slaps the city with freezing wintertime temperatures, says Ken Reeves, director of forecasting operations for Accuweather.com. Boston also has heavy rainfall, averaging 42.5 inches over the 30-year period--over 35% higher than the composite average. Much of this rain, and a good portion of the city's snowfall, is caused by nor'easter storms, which often hit Boston because of its high latitude.

"The farther north you are," says Reeves, "the greater the frequency of those storms."

What's more, cleanup doesn't come cheap. Boston-area cities and towns regularly budget upward of $1 million for snow and ice removal. Like many municipalities faced with unpredictable weather, if they overspend, that money comes out of the next fiscal year's budget, a dicey proposition during an economic downturn.New York City rounds out the top three. In addition to heavy rain the Big Apple's 8 million residents gets hit with almost 30 inches of snow on average each winter, something many may not realize because it disappears so quickly on the city's heavily salted streets and sidewalks.

An Unsurprising GroupA discussion of bad weather would be incomplete without mention of the Midwest. Our data demonstrates why: Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Columbus and Detroit all made the list.

Although Chicago and Milwaukee have drastically different populations--Chicago, home to nearly three million people, is almost five times bigger--their geographic proximity forces residents to endure the same winter weather. Both cities ranked in the top five for coldest average annual temperature, and they also finished in the top 10 for average snowfall levels.

Landlocked Minneapolis has weather nearly as bad. Its average temperature of 45.4 degrees is the coldest of all cities studied and its snowfall is the third highest at 49.7 inches. The city is saved, however, by its relatively dry warmer seasons. Detroit benefits from the same trend. Contrarily, Indianapolis and Columbus are much more measured with ample amounts of rain and snow, and a moderately cold average temperature.

Baltimore rounds out the top 10, which shouldn't be too surprising considering that it is in the eye of this weekend's predicted snowstorm. Although its residents may moan while shoveling their driveways, at least they now know they don't have it as bad as Cleveland or Boston, on average.