[Lee Stewart]

The city of Syracuse in New York receives an average of 114.7 inches (291cm) of snow annually, making it officially the snowiest city in America, according to NOAA data. The next snowiest is also in the state of New York: Buffalo which gets an average of 91.9 inches (233cm) of the white stuff each winter. Both cities are in a region impacted by so-called lake effect snow, which occurs when cold air moves across the open and relatively warm waters of the Great Lakes causing clouds to form in narrow bands. These clouds can produce as much as two to three inches (5-7cm) of snow per hour.