How Much Snow Will You Get in the Winter Storm?
There’s a reason the snowfall prediction on your weather map often misses: It represents just a fraction of the possible outcomes contained within official forecasts.
Most weather maps show you only the center of the distribution of snowfall estimates. Search below to see the full range of possibilities for your community over the next few days.
How Much Snow to Expect Through . More snow may fall after this time.
Notes: Snowfall forecast for .
Updated .
Results show the nearest location where such data is available.
Search for a location Snow probabilities aren't available for this location, but you can see the best guess on our maps below.
Source: National Weather Service’s Probabilistic Snowfall Forecast
The range can be wide. That’s because predicting snow remains tricky, especially several days out, said Alex Lamers, a warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service.
Getting a snowfall total right requires predicting the path of a storm correctly, estimating the amount of precipitation and understanding additional factors — like the temperature high in the atmosphere, or wind speeds close to the ground — that can influence the snow’s density.
Less snowMore snow
0 1 2 3 4 6 8 12 18 24 30 36 in. No Data
Most Likely Expected range of snowfall Low End 90% chance of more snow High End 90% chance of less snow
Source: National Weather Service’s National Digital Forecast Database Note: The ‘high end’ and ‘low end’ forecasts are considered experimental by the National Weather Service and are not available in all locations.
The map above shows the typical snowfall forecast — at the center of possible estimates from the National Weather Service. For some storms, that estimate is highly predictive. But for others, it can represent less than 50 percent of potential snowfall totals.
The buttons for “high end” and “low end” show forecasts on the edges of the Weather Service’s range.