Most people don’t travel much in winter, and a lot of places don’t have much snow even then, so it can be pretty hard to make much of a list of states where you have seen snow. I’ve been in 48 states, and with considerable memory effort, I can remember places in 29 states where I saw snow. There are a few others where I probably did, but have no recollection of it. I’ve also seen snow in all ten Canadian provinces, but that’s a little easier.
I count Florida, where I lived a couple of winters near the Georgia line, and once there was enough snow to stick on cars and bushes, but not on the ground. Same for a couple of Louisiana snowfalls.
Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Utah, California, Kentucky, Tennessee, Massachusetts, Washington, Maryland. For Washington and California, I’m talking about distant mountains.
I’ve seen snow in FL, LA, TX, so frankly the only state left where snow would be thought to be remarkable is in Hawaii, and I’m not making a special trip there now just to see it on Mauna Loa.
Seeing snow in the rest of the states doesn’t merit special mention, IMHO.
In the spirit of QtM’s comment I will respond with a list of states I’ve been for more than a weekend but haven’t seen snow in:
GA, Massachusetts (even though it was only a week), SC, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico. I’m not sure about North Carolina because I was in a hard freeze on a shelter on the TN border AND was in a snowfall on the VA border, so one of them had to count between the two. Texas is the state I’ve been in longest without experiencing snow. Every time I drive out west, in order to acclimate myself, I stay a couple days at Guadalupe Mountains National Park since its the closest medium-elevation park to stop at, but it’s always in the summer not the winter. I’ve only been in Colorado in the summer as well but I’ve been up close to remnants of glaciers.
True enough for tourists. Locals don’t consider it remarkable, since it happens most every year.
I have heard stories that people drive their pick-up trucks up Mauna Kea, collect snow, and make snowmen for their yards, freaking out visitors who have no idea where the snow came from. However, I’ve never seen it myself so I don’t know how true that is.
You can do better than that in Hawaii. There is sometimes actual snow skiing on Mauna Kea(you can usually go to the beach on the same day). You have to get up there yourself and bring your own equipment but it can get decent amounts of snow.
I grew up in northern Louisiana and, while snow is rare, it does happen every few years in a given place and at least somewhere in the state most years. I even witnessed (not much sticking) snow in New Orleans once. Parts of Texas get some snow fairly frequently but the bigger problem is freezing rain or sleet storms. Northerners - do not laugh. You can’t drive on those untreated roads when that happens either. The roads just turn into a solid sheet of ice with no salt or sand trucks to help.
I looked up ski resorts in the U.S. a few years ago. Most states have at least one with the exception of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida. A few others may have lost theirs since then because of business reasons but they are possible. Even very Southern states like Alabama and Georgia have some ski resorts.
In theory, you could see snow in the vast majority of the states during the middle of winter if you made an effort to.
I’ve seen snow in five states: Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Colorado. Plus Nepal and Switzerland. Maybe Japan (I think we saw snow on Mt. Fuji as we were flying into Tokyo). Maybe a couple other alpine areas in Europe, but this is all I can name for sure.
