First Snowfall: How do we compare this year?

Chicago NWS

An area of low pressure moved through the Great Lakes Wednesday bringing rain to most of us early in the day but then switching the liquid stuff to the frozen kind as cold air moved in.  It was the first snowfall of the season and for some it actually accumulated to an inch or so.  We even had a few snow showers Thursday afternoon with a disturbance that came down the western Great Lakes.

So how does this compare to our 'average' first snowfall.  For Rockford, our average date of seeing a trace or more (less than 0.1") is November 2nd.  So from this stand point we weren't too far off.  The earliest a trace of snow has fallen was back on October 3rd, 1951 and the latest was December 19th, 1999.  December 1st is the average date of recording an inch or more of snow; the earliest occurred twice and ironically on the same day - October 23rd 1917 and 1929!  The latest date was back in 1921 on February 7th.  Last year a trace of snow fell on November 4th and on December 4th was when we received over five inches of snowfall.