Millions of Americans got an early taste of winter in late October — does that mark the first snow of the season?

Maybe. Thanks to the nation’s sprawling size and complex geography, “first flakes” is a tricky label to apply. Some remote places face a year-round threat of snow, some populated regions look for reports of snow as an indication that winter weather has arrived, and other areas are too warm to ever see snowfall.

Even so, it’s worth paying attention to when snow starts falling, as winter storms often make news well before the beginning of winter.

By November, though snow is already flying at higher elevations across the country, national snow attention often turns downwind of the Great Lakes, for the colossal lake-effect snowstorms that can pummel western New York under feet of snow. Many of Buffalo’s greatest snowstorms have occurred in late November and early December, due to the lake-effect phenomenon.

Here’s what to know about when winter weather kicks off in the USA.

What counts as the first snowfall in the USA?

First snow makes the most sense as a local or regional concept, but inevitably a snowstorm gets labeled as the first storm of the season. And some smaller storms may draw attention for snow that falls unseasonably early.

The key here is geography. Some higher elevations and northern locations in the country face cold weather all the time — so snow in some places doesn’t have anything to do with winter.

“The main factors that govern the average day of your first snow are the same main factors that govern your other major climate characteristics: latitude and altitude,” said NOAA climate scientist Deke Arndt on Climate.gov. “In general, the farther north you are, and the farther up you are, the earlier the threat of first snow.”

In fact, Arndt said the highest elevations along the spines of the Rockies have a year-round threat of snow.

Where has snow fallen so far this year?

Surprisingly, for some of us, the first snow of the season in the Lower 48 happened awhile ago. According to the National Weather Service, it snowed in August in the high Sierra Nevada of California. The weather service called it “an unusually, early, cold storm, even for the High Sierra above 8,000 feet. August snow has not occurred in these locations for at least 20 years.”

It also snowed in Montana on August 26, when the weather service warned that “a cold front will bring ‘winter-like’ conditions to higher elevations of Glacier National Park Tuesday night into Wednesday. Snow levels will fall as low as 5,500 feet. If you plan to head into the backcountry, prepare for snow covered trails and an increased risk of hypothermia.”

August snow may be a bit on the early side, but September snow tends to be more widespread in the western mountains. “By September, the Washington Cascades, Bitterroot Mountains along the Idaho-Montana border, the highest peaks of the Colorado Rockies, and the western High Plains see their first flakes in an average year,” noted Fox Weather meteorologist Brian Donegan in an online report.

Does an early snow mean a snowy winter is coming? One expert interviewed by USA TODAY, University of Utah atmospheric scientist Jim Steenburgh, said the links between early (autumn) snowfall and winter snowfall are “tenuous,” meaning early snow isn’t necessarily a harbinger of a snowy winter. Another, Judah Cohen of  Atmospheric and Environmental Research, agreed, saying the relationship between early snowfall and a snowy winter is “weak.”

When will the USA get its first snowstorm?

You could argue it’s already happened, with Minneapolis’ white Halloween this year, as 0.2 inches of snow fell on the holiday, the weather service reported.

But early snow storms with higher inch totals affecting more people are likely on the way in coming weeks.

As for the big cities of the Northeast corridor from Washington, D.C., to Boston, debilitating blizzards and nor’easters are what make news, and while they can happen throughout the winter, they can’t be predicted more than a few days to perhaps a week in advance.

However, Jon Gottschalck, chief of the Operational Prediction Branch of the Climate Prediction Center said in mid-October that the storm track for nor’easters along the East Coast might favor more mild air for the big cities of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic this winter, which could mean more rain than snow there.

But he warned that snowstorms are still possible, depending on the specific weather conditions at the time.

Contributing: Dinah Voyles Pulver, USA TODAY

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Snow forecast for winter 2024: When will first snow fall?