Here’s The Date Northern Illinois Can Expect Its First Snowfall

Right about this time every year, the excitement about searching for the resting place of our snow shovels and windshield scrapers (also known as "where we tossed them last April") starts to build.

Okay...that's probably a lie. "Excitement" was just a word to use instead of describing the whole winter-prep thing as being a giant pain in the butt.

The one part that isn't a lie is the part about trying to remember where we put that snow-removal stuff. It's around this time every year that we remember we're going to need those shovels and scrapers, whether we like it or not.

Forget About Colorado, Wyoming, And Montana (It's always snowing in those states), Northern Illinois' First Snowfall Of The Year Generally Happens Around The Same Time Every Year

Sure, even though the first snowfall in Northern Illinois does happen earlier some years than others, I couldn't find any examples of anyone having to push a snow-blower around their Rockford driveway in June or July.

As a matter of fact, the record-keepers at the National Weather Service say that under normal circumstances (have we had anything resembling normal circumstances in at least a couple of years?), Northern Illinois gets its first snowfall of the season on October 31st ("Shovel the walk Henry, we've got trick-or-treaters!").

Northern Illinois Doesn't Always Wait For Halloween To Start A Season Of Snow

The National Weather Service points out that Northern Illinois and the Rockford area got its earliest first snow of the season back in 1928, when the flakes started to fall on September 25th.

For the latest first snowfall of the year, we have to pop back in time to 1999, when Northern Illinois didn't see the first snowflakes of the season until December 19th.

As for the latest date that we've received snow in this area, we'll have to go back a few years to 1925, when it snowed over Northern Illinois on May 24th.

The earliest late date for snow in Northern Illinois happened on March 5th of 2012.

On average, our area is done getting snow by April 11th.

Now That You Know The Background, What's Your Guess For The Date Of Northern Illinois' First Snowfall Of Winter 2022?

We've been as early as September 25th, and as late as December 19th, and our average starting date for snowfalls is Halloween--so I'm going to go ahead and log my guess as Tuesday, November 8th (which also happens to be Election Day).

I figure that with all the shovels we'll need to get through the campaign rhetoric, it might as well snow that day, too.