As you stare out over your brown lawn, thoughts of the winter wonderland of your or your parent's childhoods enter. The good old days when you walked both ways up the hill to school, where it snowed all the time, and winter was winter. Now, it never snows, or it always seems to miss Omaha...
...or does it? This line of thought is common for many frustrated winter lovers, that the "good old days" of the 40s-80s were very snowy, and that our recent times have paled in comparison. So, is this true? Here is what the data says, broken down by decade post-World War II.
It has snowed less in recent decades. From the mid-1940s to the mid-1980s, the average winter in Omaha was in the low 30s. After 1985, that average has fallen. In the past decade (2015-2024), Omaha's average winter is around 23", over half a foot less than in prior decades. So while it's still snowy, there was more snow in previous decades than today.
This trend can also be shown in the number of snow events (which I have defined as anything over 2"). Between 1945 and 1984, Omaha saw around 5-6 snow events per season. In our recent decade, that number has fallen to 3-4. Not a huge drop, but a drop nonetheless.
So this is pointing to the hypothesis being true, but one statistic does stick out. If one takes the number of major snowstorms (defined as anything over 6"), that number remains relatively unchanged from 1945 to 2024. This would mean fewer snow events overall, but when it does snow, it's bigger.
Moving away from scientific explanations, there are also psychological ones. Recency bias plays a factor. Last month, we watched a major snowstorm pass south of Omaha. This gave the perception that storms "always miss Omaha" when that was one system out of many in the past 5 years. Selective memory also plays a factor. You do not remember every day of your childhood, but you will remember those memorable days (i.e. when you got off school due to the snow). This can give the perception that "it snowed all the time" when you only remember the 5-6 days it snowed, not the 360 days it did not.
Now, back to the science. Believe it or not, it still snows in Omaha. We had very snowy winters from 2018-2019 and 2020-2021, which saw nearly 50" of snow! Plus, this past January, we had a blizzard!
To give some credit to the claim, there is an outlier period where bigger snowstorms hit at a higher rate. This period was in the late 1970s into the early 1980s when it was colder and snowier than before or since. To those who grew up between 1975 and 1985, it sometimes really did feel like it snowed all the time. If you want to reminisce over these snows or see what your parents endured, you can tap on the following list of big snow events:
Blizzard of 1975
The Winters of the Later 1970s
The Thanksgiving Blizzard of 1983
The Brutal Cold Snap of December 1983
So, is the claim that "it snowed more as a kid, it never snows anymore" a fact or a myth? Well, both. It does snow less overall now, but when we do see snow, it is just as memorable as it was in the 20th century.
