Bloomington resident David Schunk still remembers the week during his childhood when his neighborhood got 2 feet of snow.
Schunk described spending days out sledding with neighborhood friends.
That was 28 years ago. Schunk was in eighth grade, and he got the whole week off of school. Now he and his wife, Abby, are raising three kids in Bloomington, and both have noticed the Indiana weather changing.
“Anytime we have a couple inches of snow, our kids are ready to go out,” Schunk said. “But I can't even remember the last time we've had a foot of snow.”
In 2018, the Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment (IN CCIA) found that Indiana’s average annual temperature had warmed by 0.4 degrees per decade since 1960 and predicted a rise of five to six degrees by mid-century. As Indiana’s climate heats up, rain will begin to replace snow.
“A lot of the times when we would have gotten snow, instead, we might just get a rainy day just above freezing,” James Michael Ryan, an IU doctoral candidate in atmospheric science, said.
It’s unclear whether Indiana is already seeing decreased snowfall because of climate change.
Randy Bowers, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Indianapolis, said that while Indianapolis has received below-normal snowfall for the last three years, this could be attributed to regular variations in weather.
“It's difficult, really, to be able to determine the trend over the long term when it comes to snowfall at any one location,” Bowers said.
Bowers said the Indianapolis data provides no definite indication of a current long-term downward trend. But this could become clearer over time.
The IN CCIA predicts a vast decrease in average snowfall in southern Indiana over the next several decades.
Abby said she has noticed a change. She works as a preschool teacher, and while she’s noticed more delays due to icy roads, she hasn’t observed as many snow days as when she was a kid.
“It’s more of the sleet we get,” she said. “I don’t remember the last time we had a good snow, honestly.”
As a kid, she remembers sledding and building snowmen with her family. She says her children have had less opportunities to experience heavy snow days – though she’s not sure they know the difference.
“I don’t think they know that’s something that could’ve been a part of their childhood,” Abby said.
For David, the possibility that snow is decreasing adds to his determination to make the most of snow days. His family stocks up on winter gear and hot chocolate, and every snow day they head outside to shovel driveways and have snowball fights. They keep sleds, though he said they rarely get enough snow to use them.
“One of our boys is always asking if it sticks,” Schunk said. “He wants to know if it’s packing snow because he wants to know two things: are we going to be able to have snowball fights, and are we going to build a snowman?”
