With steady snow across the state earlier this week, and more expected to come, we look back to winters at Penn State over the years. The above gallery of photos from Penn State University Archives shows how generations of students have had fun in the winter weather.
As one of the oldest land-grant institutions in the United States, Penn State began keeping comprehensive weather records in 1882, including daily maximum and minimum temperatures, rainfall and snowfall; and wind speed and direction at the time of observation.
The snowiest January on record was in 1978, when the campus received 41.7 inches of the frosty stuff. The snowiest winter was in 1978, with University Park seeing 78.7 total inches that season. The snowiest year on record was 1994, with 102.6 total inches. On March 3 of that year, a snowstorm dumped more than 26 inches of snow at University Park.
For 2024 so far, Penn State's Joel N. Myers Weather Center on the University Park campus shows that we have had 11.0 inches of snow since Jan. 1.
Readers are invited to share their own wintry pictures with us in our current Penn State Today photo contest. The submission deadline is 5 p.m. EST on Monday, Jan. 29. Please be sure to read our full contest guidelines prior to submitting your photo.