How does this start to winter compare to some of the snowiest?

Chicago is off to its snowiest start to winter in 47 years.

We’ve had 17.1 inches of snow at O’Hare Airport through Dec. 9. That’s the most since 1978, and the fifth most overall through that time.

Here are the top five:

24.1” – 1978

21.4” – 1950

19.2” – 1977

17.6” – 1940

17.1” – 2025

We just had our 7 th snowiest month of November with 10.4 inches. The record is 14.8 inches from 1940. The last time we had this much snow in November was in 2018 with 12.7 inches.

The weather pattern has stayed active in December. We’ve had 6.7 inches through Dec. 9, which already makes this the snowiest month of December for Chicago since 2016.

Here are snow totals for December the past 10 years for comparison:

2.4” - 2024

1.2” - 2023

3.2” - 2022

1.9” - 2021

2.8” - 2020

2.0” - 2019

1.4” -