CLEVELAND — Now that the lake effect snow is done, how about we talk about the total numbers?

Since this was a multi-day event, it is not surprising that the snow added up very quickly in the primary snow belt areas. Strong lake effect bands formed with snowfall rates exceeding 2 inches per hour.

The hardest hit areas were Lake County, Ashtabula County and northern Geauga County. The overall winner with a whopping 61.7 inches was Saybrook Township in Ashtabula County. That’s over 5 feet of snow!

Just 6 miles away, Geneva reached 49 inches, a difference of about 2 inches per mile.

Andover is about 20 miles southeast of Saybrook, further from Lake Erie. There they only reached 6.3 inches, a difference of 2-3 inches per mile!

Less than 1 foot occurred everywhere along and south of U.S. Route 6 in southern Ashtabula County.

All of Lake County was covered in snow during this event. Almost every location in the county received over 30 cm of snow. The northern two-thirds of the county had more than 2 feet, and the highest total was in North Madison. They were a whopping 45 inches.

Areas in far northern Geauga County managed some decent numbers. South Thompson came into the game with 22.6 inches. Overall numbers are dropping dramatically across the county from north to south, and some locations in far southern Geauga County have had little success in removing the dust.

Still, Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, where all official records are kept, hit the target on Thanksgiving with a whopping 0.1 inches, and only a trace has remained since.

This is all the splendor of lake-effect snow! There’s a reason Lake, Ashtabula and Geauga counties are considered the premier snow belt.