How Much Snow Does North Jersey Get? Averages, First Snow and the Swing From Winter to Winter

Newark Liberty Airport averages 31.5 inches of snow a season. That is NOAA's 1991 to 2020 normal, built from 29 years of Newark data. Of it, 24.6 inches falls in December, January and February, 6.1 inches in March through May, and 0.8 inch in September through November.

Bergen and Passaic need an honest caveat. NOAA's 1991 to 2020 station list includes Teterboro Airport and about a dozen cooperative and volunteer stations across the two counties, from Tenafly and Woodcliff Lake to Hawthorne and Ringwood, and none of them carries a snowfall normal. The nearest stations that do are below. The cooperative stations among them have short records, so read the list as a range, not a ranking.

We summed Newark's daily snowfall record for the 30 winters from 1990-91 through 2019-20. Eleven winters brought under 20 inches, eight brought 45 inches or more, and only 11 landed in between. Seventeen of the 30 finished below the average, because a few very big winters pull it up. The median winter was about 29 inches.

The extremes sit far apart. The 1995-96 winter produced about 78 inches at Newark, including 27.8 inches on January 7 and 8, 1996. The 2022-23 winter produced under 3 inches, the second-lowest season in a record that runs back to the 1840s.

Back-to-back winters can be just as far apart. Newark recorded about 7 inches in 2019-20 and about 46 inches in 2020-21. Last winter, 2025-26, came in near 51 inches, a figure that may still be adjusted.

Anything you set up for the season, whether a plowing arrangement, a budget or a supply of ice melt, has to make sense in both the 3-inch winter and the 78-inch one.

At Newark, February is the snowiest month, with 10.1 inches, narrowly ahead of January at 9.1. At the two highland stations the order flips: Oak Ridge Reservoir's normal is 9.6 inches in January and 7.7 in February, and Sussex 3 WNW's is 11.6 and 9.9. The honest answer to which month gets the most snow is January or February, depending on elevation.

December deserves a second look. Its Newark normal is 5.4 inches, but NOAA's percentile table puts the middle December at 1.9 inches, with one December in four at 0.3 inch or less and one in four at 9.4 inches or more. January's middle month is 4.4 inches against a 9.1 average, and February's is 5.4 against 10.1. A single big storm can carry a whole month, which is why the averages run well above the typical month.

Newark's normal snowfall by month, in inches (May through September are 0.0):

Across the same 30 winters, Newark's first measurable snow (0.1 inch or more) arrived on a median date of about December 8, and the first full inch around December 22. In eight of the 30 winters the first measurable snow came before December 1. It came as early as October 29, in 2011, and as late as January 13, in the 1999-2000 winter. In 10 of the 30 winters the first full inch did not fall until January or February.

The back end runs later than most people remember. The median last measurable snow came on March 21, and the median last inch around March 15. The last measurable snow has come as early as January 18, in 2020, and as late as April 16, in 2014.

In the highlands the window is wider. The State Climatologist's climate overview says snow may fall from about October 15 to April 30 in the highlands, and from about November 15 to April 15 in the southern counties.

Use the dates for setup, not prediction. Anything that has to be in place before the first inch is better done by mid-November than in the week of a storm, and one winter in these 30 had measurable snow before November 1.

NOAA counts days, not storms. A storm that crosses midnight is split across two days, so it can count twice at low depths and miss a higher row entirely. The January 1996 storm, for example, went into Newark's record as 18.0 inches on one day and 9.8 on the next. Averages also hide the same swing as the totals: across the 30 winters, Newark had as few as 1 and as many as 15 days with an inch or more.

Find the row that matches the depth written into your plowing arrangement. On our residential snow removal page, that depth is set in each plan rather than printed as one number.

Newark's normal number of days a year with snowfall at or above each depth:

The Office of the New Jersey State Climatologist describes a Northern Zone of highlands and valleys covering about a quarter of the state, where annual snowfall averages 40 to 50 inches, against 10 to 15 inches in the extreme south. It treats the corridor from New York Harbor to Trenton as a separate Central Zone, where buildings and pavement hold heat.

NOAA's station normals show the same north-to-south gradient. Atlantic City averages 17.4 inches and Cape May 2 NW 14.8, both from 29 years of record, against 31.5 at Newark and 38.7 at Sussex 3 WNW. Height alone does not settle it, though. Oak Ridge Reservoir sits more than 800 feet above Newark and still reads lower, on only 11 years of record.

Within North Jersey the ground changes fast. NOAA's volunteer stations in Passaic County run from about 60 feet at Hawthorne to about 610 feet south of Ringwood, while the Bergen stations near Tenafly, Glen Rock and Palisades Park sit under 100 feet. A single county number would hide that, so read every figure here as a pattern, not a forecast for one street. Our Bergen County page covers the work we do there.

The State Climatologist's overview says coastal storms, often called nor'easters, are most frequent between October and April, that rarely does a winter pass without at least one significant one, and that some years see upwards of five to ten. It also notes that the northern edge of the Central Zone is often the boundary between freezing and non-freezing precipitation in winter. For North Jersey that means one storm can fall as rain along the urban corridor and as snow in the Northern Zone a short drive away.

Temperature also changes what the snow is. The National Weather Service office in La Crosse calls ten inches of snow to one inch of water an old rule of thumb that is far from the norm, says the ratio drops as the air from the ground up into the cloud gets closer to freezing, and notes that it can change dramatically within a single storm. A lower ratio means more water in every inch of depth. That is the wet, heavy storm: modest on the ruler, but denser to push and heavier on a roof.

It is also why depth alone is a poor guide to roof load. How much snow a roof can hold covers weights and warning signs, and ice dam removal covers what happens when roof snow melts from below and refreezes at the eave.

Three decisions follow from these figures. The first is how to pay for the winter: a season plan and an arrangement paid as it snows split the risk of a 3-inch winter and a 78-inch one differently, and the residential snow page linked above sets out our terms for houses. The second is what to prepare: driveway markers and a walk around the hardscape take an afternoon in November, and the ice melt guide covers what to buy for concrete, pavers and plants. The third is who clears the sidewalk and by when, which depends on your town; the residential snow page carries the town deadlines.

Businesses with a lot to keep open should read the commercial snow removal page, which covers scope, contracts and the owner's duty. Commercial plowing is quoted per property. For the week ahead, the National Weather Service forecast for your town is the right source; these averages only show how wide the range can be.

The figures above come from the publications below. We summed the Newark daily record ourselves, so any rounding differences are ours.