When Is The Earliest Minnesota Towns Have Gotten Measurable Snow?

One of the things I love about living in Minnesota is how we get four distinct seasons, all of which offer their own beauty, opportunities, and frustrations.

Sometimes those boundaries between our four distinct seasons get blurred, though. I've heard people knowledgeable about weather anecdotally comment about how there's technically a chance it could snow in literally any month of the year in Minnesota.

For those who aren't as big of fans of the winter season, that's maybe a bit of a downer.

Based on historical data, what is the earliest measurable snowfall Minnesota has received? How does it vary from city to city across the state? I decided to look into it, using data from NOAA.

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With the fact that Minnesota could feasibly see snow in any month of the year, how do you define what is "early" or "late? The National Weather Service uses July 1 as what is essentially the beginning of a new "snow year". That means that snow in June is technically "late" while snow in July is "early" snow for a new snow year.

While most of Minnesota tends to see its first snow sometime in October, the earliest measurable snow dates recorded by NOAA encroach into what some people like to think of as "late summer".

What's interesting about these earliest recorded snow dates is that they aren't all just in Northern Minnesota. They also aren't all just minimal snow amounts. There are some places that have seen 6+ inches of snow in September in Minnesota!

Here's a breakdown of cities and towns across Minnesota and when they've seen their earliest recorded measurable snow.