Here’s Where It Snows The Most In North Carolina
NORTH CAROLINA — Snow season is officially upon us, much to the delight of children hoping for a brief reprieve from the doldrums of school. But for many people, snow just means a slick and slushy commute. It means digging your car out of the snow, pleading with your boss to let you work from home, and buying water bottles and canned foods like a doomsdayer waiting for end-times.
If that sounds accurate, you might want to avoid Chatham County, which was just named the snowiest county in North Carolina. That’s according to the financial news and opinion site 24/7 Wall St., which published its study Nov. 22. The authors calculated the average snowfall for every county in the U.S. on the days it snowed in December, January and February from 2016 to 2018. The data came from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.
Here’s what the report said about Chatham County:
Average winter snowfall: 4.69 inches
Heaviest snowfall in last three years: 12.5 inches (Jan. 18, 2018)
Recorded snowfall, winter 2017-18: 4 days
County population: 68,778
Compared to Loudoun County, Virginia, our numbers might look pretty tame. The northern Virginia county has the highest average winter snowfall in the nation at more than 5.6 inches. On Jan. 24, 2016, the county saw a whopping 36.6 inches of snow — more than 3 feet — and there were seven days of recorded snowfall last winter.
Roseau County in Minnesota receives the second highest amount of snow on average at 5.52 inches. Tulare County, California, was the next highest at 5.44 inches followed by Bent County, Colorado, at 5.22 inches.
Most states have at least one county where snowfall is common and it often comes in bunches, the report said.
But if you’re a snow bird who likes to migrate south every winter, consider heading to Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana or Mississippi. Not a single county in those states recorded more than 0.01 inches of snow in the last three years. In fact, on average, much of the South receives just a few inches of snow each year, the report said.
And while people in those states miss out on romantic sleigh rides, that’s probably a good thing, at least for the local economy. A 2017 study commissioned by the American Highway Users Alliance about snow-related economic costs found that hundreds of millions of dollars in economic opportunity are lost each day a state is shutdown by snow. In fact, a one-day major snowstorm could cost a state hundreds of millions of dollars. New York sees the highest economic loss of any state at $700 million. Illinois loses about $400 million and Pennsylvania loses about $370 million.
The authors of the study said the economic impact of snow-related closures “far exceeds” the cost of timely snow removal, so don’t be shy about badgering your local officials about treating the roads and preparing the snow-plows. Furthermore, snow-related shutdowns hit hourly workers the hardest.
“Lost wages of hourly workers account for about two-thirds of the direct economic impact of a major snowstorm,” said James Gillula, managing director of Global Insight and the principal researcher of the study. “Among all workers, hourly wage workers can suffer the most painful economic losses and the indirect economic effects of their lost wages can ripple through the economy.”
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Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.
Photo credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images
