Snow in Tallahassee

Snow in Tallahassee is uncommon, and the National Weather Service puts the average return period for measurable snow at just once every 16 years.

The NWS Tallahassee frequently asked questions page answers the question with a decade count of every snow, from a trace to a measurable fall, since 1891. Its text says snow fell 32 times in that span and that all but 7 were only trace amounts, meaning flakes were seen but too little fell to measure. It also notes that frequent snows in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s skew any simple average.

The page does not fully agree with itself. Its decade rows add up to 36 occurrences and 8 measurable snows, while its totals line still reads 32 and 7, and its text says measurable snow has not fallen since 1989 even though the 2011 to present row lists one. The office's all-time Tallahassee records add a measurable snow on January 22, 2025, so the count above is best read as an older tally that has only been partly updated. The same FAQ says Tallahassee averages 35 days a year with lows at or below freezing, mostly from December through March.

The largest Tallahassee snowfall on record is 2.8 inches on February 12 and 13, 1958.

The NWS all-time Tallahassee records keep two columns: one for the current observing site, from March 30, 1961, to the present, and one for the earlier record from April 1, 1885, to March 29, 1961. The 1958 storm leads the older column, and the January 21 and 22, 2025 storm, at 1.9 inches, leads the current one. The office's FAQ describes 2.8 inches as the most snow recorded in a 24-hour period, and its 2025 Winter Storm summary calls 1.9 inches the second highest two-day total on record, only surpassed by February 1958.

Tallahassee's coldest reading is minus 2 degrees Fahrenheit on February 13, 1899.

The NWS records page lists that day under the earlier record, with a daily mean of 10 degrees and a high of only 22. On the current site, the coldest reading is 6 degrees on January 21, 1985, a day that also holds the current site's lowest daily mean, 17 degrees, and lowest daily maximum, 28. The NWS FAQ cites the same two readings when asked about Tallahassee winters.

After 1958 Tallahassee saw a measurable snow in December 1989, then mostly flakes and ice until January 3, 2018.

The NWS FAQ refers to that last measurable snow as 1 inch and notes that schools were already closed for the Christmas break when it fell. On the evening of February 12, 2010, the NWS write-up records that Tallahassee Regional Airport officially observed snow for a brief time, the first official observation of snow at TLH since January 3, 2002, though no accumulations were measured; snow amounts in southern Georgia were generally around an inch.

The January 28 and 29, 2014 storm was mainly sleet and freezing rain. The National Weather Service called it the third winter storm in five years to affect its Tallahassee warning area, with snow only in its northwestern zones and ice observed all the way to the coast, and wrote that it closed area schools, many bridges and overpasses and a large stretch of Interstate 10.

On January 3, 2018, freezing rain and sleet around Tallahassee changed to snow, and the NWS measured 0.1 inch officially in Tallahassee. The office called it the first recorded measurable snowfall in Tallahassee during January in records dating back to April 1885, and the region's first winter storm since December 1989.

Tallahassee recorded 1.9 inches of snow over January 21 and 22, 2025, the second highest two-day total on record.

Gov. Ron DeSantis issued Executive Order 25-13 on January 20, 2025, declaring a statewide state of emergency for the Gulf winter weather system. The NWS 2025 Winter Storm summary says the Tallahassee forecast area did not see totals as high as those to the west, but enough fell to cause hazards that persisted for several days. A warm layer aloft, which forecasters call the warm nose, melted falling snow south and east of Tallahassee, so those areas got mostly sleet and freezing rain, and the worst power outages were in Wakulla and Franklin counties along the Apalachee Bay.

On the morning of January 22 the City of Tallahassee reported a snowy, icy city with hazardous roads, closed administrative offices to the public, suspended StarMetro and canceled Dial-A-Ride trips, kept community centers and the Senior Center closed, and said operations at Tallahassee International Airport would stay suspended until 1 p.m. on January 23. A second release that day cited an NWS Extreme Cold Warning and said normal city operations would resume at noon on Thursday, January 23.

On campus, FSU News photographed the Wescott Fountain drained in anticipation of the snowfall and ice, Landis Green and Landis Hall covered in snow and ice, Bobby Bowden Field at Doak Campbell Stadium under snow amid renovations, and students with makeshift sleds on College Avenue. The university's weekly newsletter described an unprecedented winter storm that blanketed the campus in snow and ice. Across the region, the NWS reported a 70-mile closure of Interstate 10 on the night of January 21, a closure of nearly 200 miles the next day as meltwater refroze, and millions of dollars of nursery plants lost when shade structures and greenhouses collapsed.

Only flurries: the City of Tallahassee reported snow flurries in parts of town over the weekend of January 31 and February 1, 2026, during a hard freeze.

The City of Tallahassee said the cold brought two of its top 10 electric peak loads of all time, 617.46 megawatts at 9 a.m. on February 1, 2026, and 605.05 megawatts at 8 a.m. on February 2, short of the 633 megawatt record set on January 11, 2010. Its February 1 release added that, according to the National Weather Service, roughly one-third of January 2026 nights fell below 32 degrees in the area, and announced the Weather Relief Assistance Program, which lets eligible residential customers spread a January or February bill over the next four bills.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, by re-reading the NWS Tallahassee records, FAQ and winter storm write-ups, the governor's Executive Order 25-13, City of Tallahassee winter releases from 2025 and 2026, and FSU News.