Lansing Pavement and Climate Data

Last reviewed 2026-07-25. Journalists, researchers, and community groups are welcome to cite any figure on this page with attribution and a link.

Here are the raw numbers the rest of the site leans on, each paired with where it came from. The weather numbers are NOAA's 1991-2020 climate normals for station USW00014836, listed by NOAA as Lansing Capital City Airport and now called Capital Region International Airport, in DeWitt Township roughly three miles northwest of downtown. NOAA publishes these normals in tenths of a day, an inch or a degree, and the values here are converted from those.

A freeze-thaw day, as used on this site, is a day on which the low falls to 32 degrees or below but the high rises above 32. NOAA does not publish it as such. It comes from subtracting the days whose high never tops 32 degrees from the days whose low reaches 32 or colder. The soil, street and housing figures come from the USDA, the cities and townships themselves, and the Census Bureau.

Lansing's freeze-thaw year, month by month

The monthly counts show where the damage concentrates. March leads the year because its normal low of 26.0 degrees and normal high of 44.1 straddle freezing, while January's normal high of 30.1 keeps much of the month frozen solid. From June through August no freeze-thaw days occur at all, and September averages only 0.3.

Monthly freeze-thaw days are calculated from NOAA's monthly counts and sum to 80.1; the annual row uses NOAA's annual counts. NOAA reports May snowfall as a trace.

Frost dates and the working season

The frost dates below are medians: in half of years the last spring freeze comes later than May 2, and in half the first fall freeze comes before October 9. Sealing needs warmer conditions than the frost dates alone suggest, because a coat needs warmth that holds at 50 degrees or more through a whole day and night. The normal overnight low at the station passes 50 only in June, at 56.7 degrees, and falls back to 51.2 in September and 40.7 in October.

What lies under the pavement

The USDA soil survey of Ingham County divides the county into seven general soil associations. Four of them are named for Marlette and Capac soils, loamy till that together covers about 73 percent of the county. The official series descriptions add the detail that matters for pavement: Capac drains somewhat poorly, and its seasonal water table can stand 15 to 46 centimeters down, Marlette is moderately well drained with its water table 61 to 183 centimeters down between October and May, Colwood is poorly or very poorly drained, and Houghton muck is organic material more than 51 inches thick, described from a reference site near Bath in Clinton County.

Soil Survey of Ingham County, Michigan, general soil map. The survey describes the Urban land-Marlette-Capac association as about 45 percent urban land.

Streets and who maintains them

Road ownership decides who fixes the street, who plows it and who issues a permit for a new driveway approach. Michigan's Act 200 of 1969 requires a permit from the state or county road agency for a driveway onto a state trunkline or county road, and cities regulate their own streets.

Housing age across the service area

The age of a house says little for certain about the age of its drive, because a drive may have been replaced or overlaid since the house was built. Even so, the spread is wide: nearly a quarter of Lansing's homes, 24.5 percent, predate 1940, while Holt's busiest building decade was 2000 to 2009, with 22.5 percent of its homes.

Median year built and owner-occupied share are American Community Survey 2019-2023 5-year estimates as published by Point2Homes; populations are 2020 census counts.

Sources & Methodology

Every figure above was taken from the primary sources below (accessed 2026-07-25). Where a number is derived (arithmetic on published figures) or covers a broader period or area, the text says so.

1. Lansing Capital City Airport (USW00014836), NOAA NCEI annual and seasonal climate normals 1991-2020 — ANN-TMIN-AVGNDS-LSTH032 1310 (131.0 days), ANN-TMAX-AVGNDS-LSTH032 510 (51.0 days), ANN-SNOW-NORMAL 511 (51.1 in), DJF-SNOW-NORMAL 384, ANN-PRCP-NORMAL 3177 (31.77 in), 32F median dates 05/02 and 10/09, season 158 days, 28F dates 04/22 and 10/22.
2. Monthly freezing-day counts, NOAA NCEI normals 1991-2020, USW00014836 — Counts of days with lows (MLY-TMIN-AVGNDS-LSTH032) and highs (MLY-TMAX-AVGNDS-LSTH032) at or under 32F, in tenths; the freeze-thaw column is lows minus highs.
3. Monthly snow and precipitation, NOAA NCEI normals 1991-2020, USW00014836 — Monthly snowfall in tenths of an inch and precipitation in hundredths; May snowfall is coded as a trace.
4. Monthly high and low temperatures, NOAA NCEI normals 1991-2020, USW00014836 — Normal monthly highs and lows in tenths of a degree, used for the sealing-window figures.
5. USDA Soil Conservation Service, Soil Survey of Ingham County, Michigan (Internet Archive scan) — General soil map associations and their shares of the county.
6. USDA NRCS Official Series Description, Capac series — Somewhat poorly drained till soil; apparent seasonal high water table 15 to 46 cm below the surface.
7. City of Lansing, Streets — 107 miles of major streets and 303 miles of local streets.
8. City of East Lansing, Snow Removal — Street mileage by class, the three-inch residential plowing threshold and sidewalk clearing deadlines.
9. Point2Homes, Lansing MI demographics (ACS 2019-2023) — Median year built 1959, 55,943 housing units, 24.5 percent built 1939 or earlier, 53.8 percent owner-occupied.