Snow Totals in Illinois: The Last Storm and the Season So Far

The list near the top of this page reads the National Weather Service's Local Storm Reports for Illinois from the last 7 days, the biggest first, with the reporter and the time. For your own address, enter a ZIP code in the tool.

It depends on where you are. On the 1991-2020 normals, Barrington gets 38.5 inches, Chicago gets 38.4 inches, Springfield gets 21.8 inches and Carbondale gets 11.4 inches a season. The median across 192 Illinois weather stations with a normal is 19.3 inches.

Among the reference stations here, Chicago holds the record: 83.7 inches in 1978-79. Seasons run July 1 to June 30, and only seasons with nearly complete records count.

Chicago recorded 18.6 inches on January 2, 1999, the biggest single day at the reference stations on this page. The table lists each station’s own.

Of the stations on this page, Barrington, at 883 feet, has the highest normal, 38.5 inches a season. Last season, 2025-26, it recorded 33.4 inches.

Enter a ZIP code in the tool. It finds the nearest long record weather station and compares its snowfall since July 1 with the 1991-2020 normal to the same date, and shows last season’s total against a normal season.

Observers measure new snow on a flat board painted white, set out in an open spot away from trees, roofs and drifts, so the snow lands where wind has not rearranged it. The board is read at least every six hours during a storm, because snow settles under its own weight and melts from the bottom. A single reading at the end of a long storm runs low. After each reading the board is swept clean, and the storm total is the sum of the readings. Depth on the ground is a different number: it holds older snow and has settled.