Is This Really Grand Rapids’ Snowiest Start To Winter Since 1940?

As I type this, it is heavily sleeting outside my window, and the news just announced there are over 300 school closings around West Michigan. Weirdly enough, this time last year, we found ourselves in a similar situation when four inches of snow dropped on Grand Rapids on December 10th. A decent start to winter, but last year's winter was pretty front-loaded and petered off as the season went on.

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But in case you've been living under a rock, you'll know that since Thanksgiving of this year, winter has arrived with a vengeance. According to one TikTok user, this is the snowiest winter we've seen since 1940.

A bold claim, but is it accurate?

Michael Spruit's

TikTok user Michael Spruit posted a video on the 8th proclaiming that Grand Rapids was experiencing its snowiest start to winter since 1940, as it had snowed 11 of the past 12 days, according to the post's caption. Since then, that number has risen to 13 of the last 14 and will most likely grow in the coming days. It has definitely been a snowy December thus far, but is it really the snowiest start in 85 years?

Michigan's Snowiest Winter Since 1940?

Let's take a look at the records via the NOAA. Back in 1940, there were 10 straight days of reported snowfall accumulation from 11/26 to 12/5. Ten days is the stretch to beat; our 13 days of snowfall have already exceeded that, so we are indeed having one of the snowiest starts ever. But has there really not been more than 10 days of snow in the last 85 years, as Michael Spruit claims?

READ MORE: Michigan Winter Mailbox Prep Tips You Should Know

As it turns out, there are multiple instances of extended periods of snowfall lasting at least 10 days post-1940. Now, these tables don't account for stretches where acclimation started in November and bled into December, like this year and 1940, but they do give us an idea of which years & months have seen consistent, prolonged snowfall.

So instead, we dropped the number of days to 6 to look for years that had extended periods of snow in both November and December, and came across just two winters since 1940.

Looking At The Facts

For this purpose, we are using Mid-November (the 15th) as an unofficial start of Winter, and until the date of writing, December 10th, to compare. It's important to remember we are talking about consistent days of snowfall, not the total amount of snow.

• 1951-1952 saw a very early snowfall from November 1st to the 8th, totaling 24.2 inches, but it lasted only 8 days and fell before our mid-November criteria, so this doesn't count.

• The 2000-2001 winter was one of the snowiest seasons on record. In November 2000, there were 13 days of snowfall from the 13th to the 30th. December 2000 had a brief break from the 1st to the 3rd, but then ran 24 days straight with recorded snowfall. By December 10th of 2000, there had been 20 days of snowfall, far exceeding our current total of 13.

That means this is, in fact, not the snowiest winter since 1940, but it is definitely up there in terms of snowiness.

Sorry to do this to you, Michael. You are right that this year has been an anomaly thus far. I'll end on a fun fact: Grand Rapids' single snowiest day since 1940 was in 1978, when 16.1 inches of snow fell on January 26th.

Please note: I am not a meteorologist, just a guy who frequents the NOAA records.