[jaggederest]

30cm is just kinda cute. Try 600cm - you'll find a lot of A-frames up the mountain, where they routinely get >700cm of snow each year and generally no thaw until spring. Alaska, similarly, but there you'll find more domes and steep-roofed chalets, since it gets proper cold (-40) and insulation uber alles is the rule.

The other benefit of an A-frame is that the snow drifts deeply enough that winter-only cabins don't need as much insulation, because there's a 4m drift on all sides except the front.

Those kinds of places are also where you find "doors to nowhere" on the 2nd floor, because that's the winter access. One door at ground level for summer, one door ~1.5-2m up for winter.

I love visiting, but I'll never live there!

[jimnotgym]

I read this as in Finland you can get 30cm snow in a day. And the second person is comparing that to 600cm in a year. Am I right?

[jaggederest]

Total accumulation matters in roof design, not single-day dumps. The mountain I'm referring to (and others like it) can get 100cm+ single day, but that's not super common.

Helsinki, for example, only gets a total of ~90cm a year. So the mountain sees more snow in a single event some years than Helsinki all year.

[jimnotgym]

Just looking at a map though, and Helsinki is on the south coast. It appears Finland extends right up to the Arctic circle. I would guess they get more snow up there? Any Finns like to chime in?

[jaggederest]

https://en.ilmatieteenlaitos.fi/snow-statistics

Upwards of 80cm in finnish lapland, so quite a bit of snow, but not the ~2-3 meters common in the high sierras and cascades. This is mostly because the elevation is low and the sea exposure is smaller (wind blows from the pacific over the mountain and dumps snow). The Paradise Snowtel on Rainier, for example, routinely has 3-6 meters / 10-20 feet of snow in winter, and is one of the snowiest places on earth. The only place I'm aware of that has more is Aomori Prefecture in Japan and they have similar geography.