Blowing snow (snow transport) affects snow cover distribution and snowmelt runoff patterns in cold, wind-swept regions. This paper uses a statistical method to examine the occurrence of blowing snow and the meteorological conditions recorded for 16 stations on the prairies of western Canada over six winters. The results show that the occurrence probability is highly related to wind speed, air temperature and snow age. For the same air temperature and snow age, the occurrence probability increases with increasing wind speed. The probability distribution of occurrence with respect to wind speed approximates a cumulative normal probability distribution, depending on the mean and variance of wind speed: the location and scale parameters of the normal distribution. It was found that these two statistical parameters essentially indicate snow resistance and sensitivity to wind transport. Analysis of the probability distributions for the occurrence of blowing snow for different classes of air temperature and snow age reveals that the mean wind speed of the normal distribution generally increases with increasing air temperature and snow age, and the variance of wind speed increases with increasing air temperature. This leads to the development of a model which first estimates the two parameters of the normal distribution using air temperature and snow age, and then estimates the probability of the occurrence of blowing snow using wind speed and the two parameters with the cumulative normal probability function. Comparison of hours of occurrence of blowing snow and of fluxes of snow transport and sublimation estimated using the model to those determined using observations of occurrence of blowing snow shows good agreement. The results of this study can be used to estimate the frequency of blowing snow events using standard meteorological data, to determine the snow transport and snow sublimation fluxes, and to examine the effect of meteorological conditions on blowing snow processes.¿ 1997 American Geophysical Union