Duluth's Winter Of 2022-2023 Now Snowiest Season Ever Recorded

After a strong start to the 2022-2023 snowfall season for Duluth, things never really slowed down. The December 2022 blizzard that kicked the season off went down in history as one of the biggest two-day snow events ever recorded in Duluth, with over 2 feet falling at the official recordkeeping location for Duluth during that storm. Things just progressed from there.

This winter broke into the list of top 10 snowiest winters in early March, and we've continued to creep closer to the record over the last few weeks. With a quick 3.4 inches last weekend, Duluth stood just 0.3 of an inch short of the record as of Monday.

The Duluth office of the National Weather Service has been monitoring and updating the latest snowfall totals for this storm, knowing a lot of intrigued Northlanders are following if or when Duluth might hit the new season snowfall record.

As of 2 am Thursday morning, Duluth had reached 135.4 inches on the season, tying the previous record set by the winter of 1995-1996.

By 2:30 Thursday morning the Duluth NWS office reported a total for this storm of 0.7 of an inch (with more on the way), which eclipsed the 0.4 of an inch Dultuh needed to break the record. That puts us at a total season record of 135.8 inches of snow, which is 0.4 of an inch more than the previous record.

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Since that update, Duluth has picked up even more snow. As of 7 am, Duluth's season total for 2022-2023 at 137.1 inches. That puts us 1.7 inches over the old record. As the National Weather Service mentioned in a tweet sharing the news, they count all snow for a "season" from July 1 through June 30. That means that whatever we get between now and June 30 will be added on to this record.

In a subsequent update at 7 am on April 21, Duluth now has 138.9 inches of snow over the season, which is now 3.5 inches more than the previous record that stood since 1995-1996.

While we aren't talking about big numbers, additional light snowfall is expected Friday and Saturday. The forecast calls for a dusting to maybe an inch or so of snow for Duluth before the end of the weekend. This will continue to add to this winter's new record total.

So, like it or not, we did it!?

While still a little colder than average, next week is expected to warm up a little bit. We will see highs in the 40s, which will hopefully cut down on additional snowfall opportunities.

The 15 Snowiest Winters On Record In Duluth History

Since the National Weather Service began keeping weather records in Duluth in the late 1800s, here are the 15 winters with the highest snowfall totals on historical record.

It is worth noting that the official records from 1941-today have been recorded at the area now known as the Duluth International Airport (away from the lake, on top of the hill). Before then, various locations closer to Lake Superior had been used for official weather recording data. For anyone that knows anything about how Lake Superior and the hill play a role in temperature and snow, you can see how this makes older records inherently different.

While these records note the "snowiest winters", they actually include all seasonal snowfall from July 1 through June 30 of the following year.

Source: Yay? New Season Snowfall Record For Duluth Continues To Grow As Additional Snow Falls