<p>Ok, ok. The answer is yes, for one year right after college. Oak Park, actually. But just a year! So maybe I don’t actually know what I’m talking about! Could that be? </p>
<p>I think I have that notion because I’m an avid cross country skier and do races in MN and WI and there are few Milwaukee and fewer Chicago-area skiers, which I take to mean there isn’t reliable, ski-able snow all winter in these places. The Chicago guys talk of driving to NE Wisc to do their training on weekends. Anyway…</p>
<p>Madison doesn’t get any lake effect snow. Way too far away from Lake Michigan and the Madison lakes are too small to provide the amount of moisture that Lake Michigan does.</p>
<p>If you meant does Milwaukee get more snow than Madison because of the lake effect snow totals, the official averages are pretty equal. Offical measurements are at the airport and Mitchell is pretty close to the lake. There are times the airport and downtown can have a foot of lake effect but there’s nothing inland or in Madison. It balances out over time because there are times the airport and downtown get rain like this last storm while inland including Madison it’s snow. Being west of Lake Michigan the lake effect only happens when the winds are from the N and NE where usually they are from the NW or W. It’s not as frequent as Buffalo or Cleveland for example.</p>
AM.
Not 1979, the 18" snowfall was in the winter of 1973; I don’t remember the month. </p>
<p>The winter month(s) with no snow were January/early Feb 1974, the year I graduated.</p>
<p>The 15 inch snowfall was April 15,1971. There was a big article about it with pictures in the Yearbook that year.</p>
<p>Since y’all enjoyed the first story, here’s another snow story I just thought about: </p>
<p>In 1973 we were in gas rationing and gas stations were closed on Sundays. My GF and I stayed in Milwaukee to see the last basketball game of the semester after finals and had intended to hit the road on Monday but a big snowstorm was headed our way so we decided to leave Milwaukee around 4PM Sunday and were going to drive as far as we could and stop and wait for the gas stations to open at midnight. (We were both from the same hometown in Ohio but actually met at MU) We got to just north of Chicago and it was snowing so hard we came to a standstill for a while and once we got going behind a snowplow/salt truck we averaged about 15 mph at best. It literally took us 4 plus hours to get from the north suburbs/Northbrook exit to the Indiana line. We stopped at the first rest stop with a gas station on the Indiana turnpike and napped for few minutes (it was still snowing like crazy) until we could fill up. We called our families from pay phones (days before cell phones and told them we were going to try to drive all night but would stop if we had to) and hit the road again. The heavy snow let up on the other side of South Bend and we were able to drive more normally. We got to our hometown at about 9AM. Her dad came out to greet us and laughingly said “I thought you had a red car…” My car was completely covered with white salt with no red showing through…;)</p>
<p>The winter month(s) with no snow were January/early Feb 1974, the year I graduated.</p>
<p>The 15 inch snowfall was April 15,1971. There was a big article about it with pictures in the Yearbook that year.</p>