How often does it snow in Victoria?

It's been a while since we saw a scene like this (from 2006) in Victoria - four years, in fact!

The last time there was more than 1 cm of snow on the ground in Victoria was January 20, 2012 – four years ago tomorrow, and there’s a good chance that we will make it through the rest of this winter without snow.  Even by Victoria standards, that’s an unusually long snowless stretch.  In fact, it’s the longest snowless stretch since they began recording snow depth at Victoria Gonzales in 1955.  The second longest stretch was from February 20, 1986 to February 15, 1989 – just short of three years.   

How often does it snow in Victoria?  That’s a question that residents and non-residents frequently ask, and I have heard a lot of different answers.  Some people may think it never snows in Victoria, while others will claim it snows every winter.  I already talked about the general patterns for snow in Victoria in an earlier post, but I thought I would dig a bit more deeper into the statistics to get a better sense of just how often we actually get snow.

There are two ways of measuring snow.  The first method is to measure snowfall.  The second method is to measure the amount of snow that actually accumulates on the ground.  This can be quite different since often when it does snow in Victoria it doesn’t actually “stick” – it just melts as it hits the ground.  This would still be considered snowfall, but there would be no measured accumulation on the ground. 

Let’s first look at snowfall.  As I mentioned in my earlier post of snow, the average annual snowfall in Victoria is 20 cm.  The chart below shows average monthly snowfall in Victoria over the past 30 years (1981-2010). 

While the chart above shows average monthly snowfall, it doesn't say anything about how often Victoria actually gets snows during a given month.  The table below shows the percentage of years during 1981-2010 when there has been measurable snowfall during a given month.  The results are quite interesting.  For example, even though Victoria's "average" snowfall for December is 9 cm, the table shows that Victoria has only received measurable snowfall during 37% of Decembers between 1981 and 2010. In other words, in most Decembers it doesn't snow at all.  In fact, this is true for every month.  January is most likely to get at least some snow (47% of the time), but it still falls short of a majority of years.  In Victoria, snowfall averages tend to be skewed because most years there is little or no snow, but every several years there can be a relatively big snowfall in a given month.  

Looking at the year as a whole, 93% of winters get at least 0.2 cm of snow and (as shown in the second column) 74% of winters get at least 5 cm of snow.   

I always smile when I hear breathless reports from back east about a snowstorm that delivered “a month’s worth” of snow in a few days.  In Victoria, because big snowfalls are so infrequent, it’s quite common that when it does snow we’ll get a whole month’s worth or even a whole winter’s worth of snow in one storm.  An extreme example of this was the Blizzard of 1996, when Victoria received an amazing 107 cm of snow over 4 days in late December.  That’s the equivalent to five year’s worth of snow!  Even more impressive, we received more snow during those 4 days than we received in the following 9 winters combined!  That one snowfall in December 1996, accounted for nearly 40% of all December snowfall over a 30 year period and without it, average December snowfall in Victoria would be closer to 5 cm than 9 cm.

Instead of average snowfall, we could instead look at median snowfall.  The median is the point where half the years are above and half the years are below.  Since, as the table shows, there are no months where it has snowed the majority of years during 1981-2010, the median monthly snowfall for Victoria is 0 for every month.  While the majority of years there is no snowfall in any given month, there usually is at least some snow at some point during most winters.  The table shows that 74% of winters record at least 5 cm of snow.  The median winter snowfall is 13 cm – meaning half of winters get more than this amount and half get less.  

Now let’s look at snow on the ground.  Having snow actually accumulate on the ground is less common in Victoria than having snowfall.  Only 7% of Victoria winters during 1981-2010 recorded no measurable snowfall, but 30% of winters during the same period recorded no days with more than 1 cm of snow on the ground.  Victoria gets an average of 4.8 days (or a median of 3 days) each winter with more than 1 cm of snow on the ground.  

As mentioned at the beginning of this blog, Victoria has now experienced 3 winters in a row (2012/13, 2013/14, and 2014/15) without accumulating more than 1 cm of snow, and we're half way through our fourth snowless winter.