Here’s How Much Snow You Can Expect This Winter In Lubbock and West Texas

So far we've seen a few snowflakes in the Hub City, but most of those were just plastic Christmas decorations.

People still get a little antsy when the Christmas ads come on the radio and televison wondering when they might see some snow, will it be here for Christmas, and how much snow will we get?

Let's get to some good news/bad news. If you like snow, the Old Farmer's Almanac is predicting that our precipitation and snow will be "above normal". So what's the bad news? Well if you don't like snow, then "above normal" means over nine inches.

That's right, the average amount of snow each year for Lubbock is nine inches. That doesn't mean that it snows 9 inches every year, but it's a good rule of thumb for how much you can expect.

The snowfall around these parts fluctuates wildly, for instance between 2016-2018 there was only one half-inch TOTAL of snow in these parts, while in 2020 we had 12 inches. If we go back further historically we received 13.3 inches in 2015 and 14.7 in 2014.

If you've been around these parts for a bit, you'll probably remember 1982 when we set the record with 41.2 inches of snow. Just looking over the snowfall amounts, and again just prognosticating a bit, it looks like the average "light snow" year is a couple of inches, with the average "heavy snow" year being some where around 13-15 inches.

Again, the actual average is nine inches, which doesn't sound like that much, except here in Lubbock we tend to get it all at one time. Keep in mind that Winter doesn't officially kick in until December 21st and we've already seen some very cold, unseasonable temperatures.

One more thing, on a personal note. I'd like to dedicate this dissection of the weather to my two favorite weather ladies, who came up together while researching snow pics.