Snowfall varies greatly from winter to winter.
The least snow in a winter season on record for Fargo Moorhead was 9.3 inches in the winter of 1957-58. The most is 117.0 inches in 1996-97. The average winter snowfall over the three most recent complete decades, which is the amount used as the present-day “normal” is 50.1 inches. However, this figure is probably high because of the unusually snowy winters in the mid-1990s and again during the flood-prone period from 2008-2011.
Snow has been measured routinely since 1885, but snow measurement techniques have changed. In particular, the method for measuring snow during very windy storms has become much more sophisticated over time. Some pre-1900 snow measurements are suspiciously low. Considering all of this, a realistic average winter snowfall figure for Fargo Moorhead from the 1880s to now is probably around 40-44 inches. But remember, this is an estimated average. Snowfall will always vary greatly from winter to winter.
