Benton County Leads The Way For Snow In Central Minnesota

It has been a snowy winter in Central Minnesota to this point. According to WJON's Jim Maurice, St. Cloud saw 15.7 inches of snow in December, which is seven inches above normal. For the season St. Cloud has seen just over 23 inches of snow, which is also 7.1 inches above normal.

Lawn Love recently studied 213 United States counties to find the 'Snowiest Counties' for 2026. Using factors like historical snowfall, climate and snow removal preparedness, Lawn Love set out to find the definitive, true, final answer to the question plaguing society since the beginning of time: Which is the snowiest county?

Surprisingly (to me anyway), Coos County, New Hampshire was the 'snowiest,' as opposed to a Minnesota county.

Coos County averages about 41.22 inches of snow per season, which is the most in the country. In addition, they have the second-highest single-day snowfall on record at 49.3 inches!

MINNESOTA'S SNOWIEST COUNTIES 

You have to go all the way down to the seventh-place spot in the Lawn Love rankings to find the first Minnesota count, St. Louis County. The home of Duluth, St. Louis County has the ninth-highest single-day snowfall total in history at 42.5 inches.

Hennepin County ranked #33 in the study, followed by Koochiching County (#65), Olmsted County (#77) and Ramsey County (#79).

CENTRAL MINNESOTA'S SNOWIEST COUNTY 

The snowiest county in Central Minnesota is Benton County, which ranked #117 in the study. Benton ranked #140 in Historic Snowfall, #34 in Climate and #78 in Snow/Preparedness.

St. Cloud has averaged 47.9 inches of snow per season since 1991 according to St. Cloud State University. That number is up from 46.1 inches per season from 1981-2010.