The time of year most of us dread is almost here...winter. Get ready to get out your shovels, snowblowers, ice scrapers, and warm gear because if we've learned anything about winter in Iowa it's that it can be brutal.

Thrillist just ranked each state by how miserable their winters are. They based their results off of "everything from weather patterns and average temperatures to the efficacy with which state governments keep roads clear to the historical success rates of their winter-season sports teams". As you can imagine, Iowa was among the worst.

We barely missed the Top 10, coming in at No.11 on the list. Here was their description:

One January, while inexplicably choosing to travel by car from Chicago to Iowa to watch an Iowa basketball game, there was a whiteout-style snowstorm en route, and a truck jack-knifed along I-80, and there was the biggest traffic jam in recent Iowa history, which we managed to avoid thanks to Google Maps all of a sudden nervously bellowing out that we needed to turn off onto some random farm road. All of the Iowans seemed to take this in stride with a suspiciously friendly Midwest-ness, possibly because Iowa has to deal with a super confluence of sh***y weather: snowstorms in the winter; 50 days of thunderstorms; an average of 47 tornadoes a year (in 2008 there were 105). I mean, jeez, even Wikipedia calls their winters 'harsh'."-Matt Lynch, Thrillist

Yep, that pretty much sums it up. We're used to the "harsh" winters. Now let's take a look at which states have it worse than we do.

10. Massachusetts
9. Montana
8. Idaho
7. Wisconsin
6. South Dakota
5. Maine
4. North Dakota
3. Alaska
2. Michigan
1. Minnesota

How does Minnesota and Michigan beat Alaska!? Yikes. Most of our neighboring states seem to be worse off than us, except for Illinois (no. 13), Nebraska (No. 25) and Missouri (No. 28). You can check out the full list here.

If there's any bright side to this, it's that at least we're not in the Top 10. And snow can be pretty. Bring it on, winter!

 

More From 98.1 KHAK