Although snowstorms can dump heavy snow and pile it into deep drifts, snowflakes are made of a little water and a lot of air. Typically, there is about a 10-12-to-1 ratio of snowfall to water content.
When the weather is very cold, the ratio can be higher. The two months of January and February may bring lots of snow, but it probably won’t amount to very much water. In fact, February is the driest month of the year, on average, and January is the second driest.
Average snowfall for January and February combined is 18.2 inches, but the average total precipitation during these two months is only 1.31 inches. We might easily get that much water in an hour during a summer thunderstorm. Historically, the wettest winter months of the past have not been the snowiest months. Rather, the wettest winter months have been those that have included a significant rainfall.
