It could have been much longer, but data available doesn’t go back further.

According to the National Weather Service, so far this winter season Buffalo received 133.6 inches of snow.

The village of Mayville records its own snowfall totals and publishes the amounts on its website. In 2022-2023, Mayville has recorded 123.5 inches on snow.

That’s a difference of 10.1 inches of snow. Although the snow season hasn’t wrapped up, it’s not that often that Mayville gets more than 10 inches of snow from late April to June, especially without Buffalo getting any snow.

This photo, taken Feb. 15, shows how much snow had been received this past winter at that point. The sign had no snow below it. Photo by Gregory Bacon

Nearly half of Buffalo’s snow total came in late December from two major events: a lake effect snow event from Dec. 16-18 and the Blizzard of 2022 from Dec. 23-27. Buffalo accumulated 64.7 inches of snow that month. Neither event impacted Mayville.

Over the past 71 years, Buffalo has never even come close to overtaking Mayville for the snowiest community.

The Post-Journal/OBSERVER examined the snow totals between the two municipalities. Mayville has its snow totals going back to 1951-1952. The National Weather Service has Buffalo’s snow totals listed on its website going back to the 1800s. For the 1944-45, Buffalo started recording its snowfall total at the Buffalo airport.

Sine the 1951-52 season, there’s been a significant difference between Buffalo and Mayville. The lowest difference was in 2020-2021 when Buffalo received 77.2 inches of snow and Mayville received 122.5 inches of snow, That year, Mayville received 45.3 more inches of snow than Buffalo.

The biggest difference was in 2008-2009. That season, Buffalo received 100.2 inches of snow, while Mayville received 295 inches, a difference of 194.8 inches of snowfall.

Since 1951-52, 38 times Mayville had more than 100 inches of additional snow accumulation than Buffalo.

The highest snowfall year recorded in Mayville was the winter of 1995-96. That winter the village received 296 inches of snowfall while Buffalo received 141.4 inches of snow.

The highest snowfall year recorded in the Queen City was the winter of 1976-77. That year Buffalo received 199.4 inches of snow while Mayville received 290 inches. That season is significant because that was the year of the famed “Blizzard of 1977.”

The winter of 2011-12 was the lowest snowfall total for both Mayville and Buffalo. That season Mayville received 109 inches and Buffalo received 36.7 inches of snow.

DUNKIRK AND JAMESTOWN

Both the two cities in Chautauqua County get significantly less snow than Mayville, although the data on the National Weather Service’s website is not nearly as complete.

The National Weather Service only has recorded data from 2015-2016 onward for both Dunkirk and Jamestown. In eight of the nine years, Jamestown had more snow than Dunkirk did. The one year Dunkirk received more was in the 2021-22 winter, where Dunkirk had 56.9 inches of snow and Jamestown had 56.5 inches.

For the last nine winters, Jamestown had more snow than Buffalo five times and Dunkirk had more snow than Buffalo only once. The one winter season where Dunkirk had more snow than Buffalo was in 2015-16, where Buffalo had 55.1 inches, Dunkirk had 60.1 inches, and Jamestown had 75.6 inches of snow.

PERRYSBURG

Even though Mayville gets a lot of snow, perhaps the highest in the county, Perrysburg in Cattaraugus County seems to get more.

The National Weather Service has data for Perrysburg going back to the 2004-2005 winter. This year’s totals aren’t listed yet, with 94.9 inches received through March 31.

In the previous 18 years, 10 times Perrysburg has had more snow than Mayville. It’s snowiest season was 2013-14, when Perrysburg received 313 inches, which is higher than Mayville ever recorded over the last 72 years.