The definition of start and end dates for the four seasons varies and academic arguments are had as to which one is the best. The "Meteorological Winter Season" started on Tuesday with the calendar turning to December and runs through the end of February. If one considers the presence of snow cover as a sign of winter, this three month period does a decent job of coinciding as shown by the featured chart of daily snow cover for Des Moines over the past 50 years. While snow producing storms are common in March and into April, the snow struggles to stick around. Snow during December has much better chance of surviving and the persistent snow cover periods shown for the years 2000-2001 and 2009-2010 certainly make those winters more memorable.

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