First off, Congratulations to the Syracuse Orange Women’s Basketball Team on breaking into the top 25 in the AP Rankings coming in at #24. Well deserved for your hard work and keep it going!!! http://sports.espn.go.com/ncw/rankings I listened to most of the UConn game on the radio and man that was just as exciting as any men’s basketball game.

OK, About a week ago I almost typed that a couple of the Golden Snowball cities are within reach of catching some of the snow totals from up North like Oswego and Fulton. Then reality set in and I decided to wait another 2 months before I type something like that. Well the north has finally turned on their lake effect machine and it’s still running. More than enough to get the snowmobilers hitting the trails once their groomed and it’s cold enough so the snow should be sticking around this time.

Here are some stats that were posted by ZR800 in the forum this morning and more has fallen since then and look at the snow rates. It was and could still be in certain places falling at 2 to 3 inches an hour:

…OSWEGO COUNTY…
FULTON 37.0 422 AM 1/21 18″ LAST 9 HOURS. ENDED
OSWEGO 30.0 600 AM 1/21 15″ LAST 7 HRS…CITY.
MEXICO 26.0 300 AM 1/21 7″ LAST 2 HOURS

I took a look at the Northern Chateau cam online a couple of hours ago at http://www.northernchateau.com/webcam.html and the measurement was showing just under a foot of snow which is where it was a couple of days ago. Now it’s at the 1 1/2 foot mark which means they are most likely getting 2 to 3 inches an hour right now and Tina from the forum who lives up that way said it was something like 13 below this morning there so that snow won’t be going anywhere soon.

In Fulton more than snow is coming down. Unfortunately the DPW garage came down also. Well the roof did anyways and looking at the pictures it looks like the whole building might have to come down. Check out the story and pictures at http://blog.syracuse.com/news/2008/01/local_news_64.html . I guess if there is any good news to come out of it it’s that nobody was hurt and the plows were out of the building at the time which is kind of obvious to me that they would be. It sounds like the dump trucks and some other equipment were in there though so for those of you in the Fulton area it looks like trash pickup will come a week late. Fulton is also under an emergency right now until they get things cleaned up. Maybe Jeff Brown, our DPW head man will send some plows their way to pitch in????

For those of us in the GSB cities we can only look at the snow (depressing) in other cities right now which is pretty pitiful in my opinion. I was hoping that the band of snow off the lake would have come a little further south to Syracuse but like last year when all the heavy stuff hit the north it just wouldn’t quite reach us. Anyways you can check out the Tug Hill area using the cam mentioned above. My daughter will be heading back to Suny Oswego come Wednesday as her Christmas break ends and you can check out what she has to look forward to by going to the Suny Oswego cam at http://www.oswego.edu/webcam/index.html . Have a Great Week All!

Just a heads up on the weather and also the comments received so far about how we all feel about snow have been great. Thanks and plenty more views are wanted so keep leaving your comments about how snow effects you at http://goldensnowball.com/2008/01/snow-lovers-and-haters-opinions-needed.html .

It looks like another near hit storm that will most likely miss or at the most just graze most of the Golden Snowball cities. The storm that is coming up the coast and is just about to reach us all is pretty much doing the same as the last storm is. Staying to far East to give us any decent amounts of snowfall. I’m going to say it again.

Buffalo watch your back because you are soooo close to dropping to last place. I think my bias is starting to show a little huh. I just think it will be fun to see either Binghamton and Albany ahead of any of the big 3 and be at the bottom. Even if it is Syracuse or Rochester but right now it’s Buffalo trying to fend off the last place spot.

What is pretty cool in my opinion is that although Buffalo is close to falling to last place they aren’t that far out of first place as far as snow totals go for the contest. Just think about it. There is only about 22 inches separating last place Binghamton (that was fun to say) and first place Syracuse this year. We all know by now that change in the winds during a storm or lake effect snow one direction or the other can even things up pretty quickly. Rochester has been slowly building their snow pile numbers up and are sneaking Right up to Syracuse now less than 8 inches away from taking the lead over. My point is that this seasons snow contest is a lot closer than it might seem by looking at the stats.

Another thing, is it time for a snow dance. Looking at last years numbers that snowy December we had this season to give us all an above normal amount of snow has slowly slid away and things have pretty much caught up. I think we should give it another week and see how the lake effect snow plays out with the Arctic air moving in before we have to revert to the snow dance, using reverse Psychology or asking NYCO to put the Snow God on warning that it might end up back in the closet.

Enough said and please keep your responses coming about your feeling about out snow in the post I made the other day below. They are much appreciated and really interesting to read. For what it’s worth I’m forecasting that Buffalo drops at least one spot by tomorrow evening with a real possibility of dropping all the way to the bottom. Have a great evening all and Go Binghamton and Albany!!!!

Here’s where your help and input is needed and deeply appreciated. Since yesterday I have been doing an email exchange with Charlie English who is a journalist from London and who works for the Guardian ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/ ) is working on a book about snow and its effect on people? Charlie visited family in CNY in February of 2006 and really liked it and wants to know how we all feel about the snow we receive each year. I’m hoping for a good response from all of you New Yorkers who visit the Golden Snowball website so that Charlie can get a good feel as what kind of effect it has on all of us. Obviously some of us hate the snow and some of us love it.

Quite often the Golden Snowball website gets some interesting emails from people all over the state and even the entire country either asking about the weather or contest or voicing an opinion about the snowfall that New York state receives. Only once in awhile do we get emails from other countries asking about the snow and the Golden Snowball contest and in my opinion it’s pretty cool when it happens.

Below are a few questions that Charlie English is interested in for any of you willing to help out. You can just post your answers and feelings by clicking on the comment link and remember they get moderated before they post so don’t worry if it doesn’t show up right away. You don’t have to sign up to post a comment here, you can just check either the anonymous spot or the nickname box and type a name in there. You don’t have to use your real name but PLEASE let us know from what part of New York you are from and thanks for your responses.

Some Questions;

One of the questions Charlie has is about the Psychological effect the snow has on you. Does it put you in a better mood when it’s snowing out or does the snow get you down a little bit or a lot.

Does it have an affect on our sense of humor during the snow season? How about your family or friends?

What helps you to get by during the snowy months? Playing in it or just trying to avoid it completely.

I know that there comes a point for most of us other than the sledders and skiers where enough is enough. When is it enough for you? In other words come the first snowfall is enough already or can you deal with it much longer.

What do you like about our winters or for a couple of you what don’t you like about the snow? Yeah I know it’s more than a couple who don’t like the snow.

In summary I think what Charlie is looking for is pretty much your general opinion and how you feel about all the snow we get in New York. whether it’s a good or a bad opinion, mood swings and so on. Just chime away and your answers are appreciated. Make sure to add where you are from though whether it’s the Tug Hill area up north, Buffalo, Syracuse, Utica or wherever and thanks for taking the time. Have a great day all!

I figured I would do an evening update because Binghamton has finally dug their way out from the bottom and we’ll see if it will last. Hopefully Mike and the others will come back and play now :p The latest update shows Binghamton edging their way out of last place by only a tenth of an inch. The question is can they stay out of last place for awhile???

Buffalo is really, really, REALLY skating on thin ice this season and right now they are only 2 inches away from sledding to the bottom in the GSB contest. Even if they tie Albany they are still going straight to the bottom 🙂 Only because we list them alphabetically during a tie. Well that plus it will be just a lot of fun to see Buffalo on the bottom for a change and especially this far into the snow season.

Snow is in the forecast for a good part of the week so hopefully there will be a lot more updates to come. Something could be trying to whip up for the end of the week and we’ll post more if it all comes together. Hopefully one of the experts will jump in and keep us updated. I won’t even get into my prediction I made for the SU game Sunday. It’s best just left alone. Have a super night all!

From reading around it looks like a couple of inches here and there are in the forecast for most of the Golden Snowball cities. A storm that will be coming up the coast looks like it will stay far enough to the east to miss CNY. It could get interesting though between Binghamton, Albany and Buffalo with the storm that will be moving up some time soon. Right now from what I am reading it is expected to stay to the eastern part of New York but if Albany can grab some snow from it they could skate into 3rd place.

Another scenario is if the storm can hang north east long enough to give Binghamton and Albany both a little bit of snow Buffalo could find itself in dead last. Go Bingo, Go Albany 🙂 My guess is if that happened the General would be on a plane out of Buffalo by Tuesday because of embarrassment. I don’t see it happening but it is a possibility. OK, the General will be heading out on Tuesday whether they are in last or not but the embarrassment part sounded good 🙂 Enough about weather!

Go SU basketball! I’m talking the SU women’s team who is rocking this season. Another big win last night over South Florida moves their record up to 14 – 2 and 2-1 in the Big East. Way to go ladies and keep on rocking!!! They have the game of the season coming up Tuesday night against UConn who is ranked #1 in the country right now. Start sending the vibes to the SU women’s basketball team so they can pull off the big upset of the season by beating the Huskies Tuesday night. Better yet it’s a home game so get out there and support them. I’m as guilty as the rest of Syracuse having only gone to a couple of women’s basketball games in my life but it’s better late than never to support their hard work. Unfortunately I have a prior commitment because I would rather be going to watch SU beat UConn and I can feel it’s going to happen. Who knows, maybe I will end up being able to watch the game. To Time Warner!!! START SHOWING THE WOMEN’S GAMES ON TV!!!!

It will be interesting to see if they can break the top 25 this week after last nights win over S. Florida. They had a loss to Pitt during the week but Pittsburgh was ranked 26 and SU 27 last week so hopefully the committee ranks them both in the top 25. Good Luck ladies come Tuesday night!

The men’s basketball team plays West Virgina in about half an hour and it should be a good game. Lets hope that they can turn around that loss from the other night and get a good road win today. They didn’t seem to have the running game going the last game and got beat up on the boards. If they can control the boards today and get the fast breaks going they shouldn’t have a problem. If they can’t control the boards look for a close game. Su by 18, 83 – 65 the Orange! Have a great day everyone!

Is the little girl to blame for the wacky weather? Hopefully that little burst at least gave our Fort Drum soldiers a little taste of home.

La Nina which from what I have read so far means “Little Girl” in Spanish and it seems that we are seeing the little girl cast her spells in many parts of the world. Sully who is a visitor to the Golden Snowball website has been giving us some great informative information about what could be going on right now weather wise. From what Sully says and trust me when I say I could be mis-interpreting it because it’s pretty technical stuff, is that come the end of this month it will be an official La Nina and most likely a labeled as a pretty strong La Nina or at the very least a moderate one. I’m not going to go rant on about it because I’m still a little clueless (go figure huh) and I’m still Reading up on it. From what I have read it happens because of the water temperatures get colder in the 3.4 region, I think. One thing I did read is that the waters around Australia were colder than normal which may be playing a little havoc as to what normally occurs during a La Nina. Hopefully Sully will stop by when he is feeling a little better and clear up anything I have wrong. Most likely all of it 🙂 Below are some of Sully’s responses that he posted at GSB and once again a big thanks Sully for the great information and Sully has a great informative weather blog at http://www.wunderground.com/blog/sullivanweather/ 🙂

Part of a Conversation about the Warm Weather and La Nina (Little Girl);

SULLY: To have two consecutive years of all-time record breaking warmth is quite unusual. Then again, when one has such a powerhouse Pacific storm system flooding the country with mild Pacific air on the heels of a record breaking area of high pressure (a few records for highest atmospheric pressure were broken over the southeast last week) the return flow of air between these two very large strong synoptic features will most certainly be able to tap the sub-tropics/tropics. The Pacific system’s source air also came from near 30°N, which is the top of the ‘horseshoe’ of warmer than normal SST’s that typically exists during La Nina winters. If you notice many of the all-time record highs across the Northeast for January occurred in 1950 (Strong La Nina) and 1967 (cold neutral – ONI -0.4 close to the 5 month consecutive -0.5 or lower to meet La Nina criteria as the next 3 months dipped into weak La Nina conditions -0.5,-0.6,-0.5). Those years also had major severe weather outbreaks very similar to those experienced over the previous two days.With that being said La Nina is also known for its wild temperature fluctuations and this will show itself later this month as a rather significant arctic outbreak should push its way over from Siberia. There’s already indications of this arctic air becoming displaced as there’s ridging beginning to develop, and more importantly, retrograde over eastern Asia/western Pacific. Usually when this event begins to take place arctic air is about 7-10 days away for the western hemisphere. AO/NAO variables at that time will determine how far south this arctic air will push. Current ensemble means have neutral conditions in the day 7-14 period which would have this airmass evac over the Canadian Martimes/northern New England, but this is still one to two weeks away and much can change between now and then. As it is the AO has been wildly variable for the last 6 months so I doubt a neutral AO will prevail over that entire time frame so somewhere over the northern tier of the US will get clipped by this airmass.
1/8/08 4:45 PM

Patrick said…
Sully, thanks for the great detailed explanation as to what’s going on. WeatherT from the forum also mentioned something about some pretty cold air getting ready to most likely over take the NE. Out of curiosity is the current La Nina considered weak or strong???

Sully said…
Patrick, The current La Nina is actually considered ‘moderate’. The CPC rates La Nina on the ONI index which is a measure of the nino 3.4 region anomalies averaged over a 3 month period. In order to qualify for La Nina anomalies of -0.5 or greater must be met for the 3 month averaged period for a timespan of 5 consecutive months. Technically by this definition, we have yet to attain ‘La Nina’ (this will change at the end of January which will be the 5th consecutive month these conditions will be met). The rankings are as follows:

Weak: -0.5 to -1.0
Moderate: -1.0 to -1.5
Strong: >-1.5

The latest 3 month averaged value for Oct-Nov-Dec was -1.2.—–With that being said, as far as I’m concerned we’ve reached strong La Nina conditions. The SOI has recently skyrocketed, indicating strong La Nina and the pattern over the US all winter has exhibited classic La Nina, overcoming other climatic variables.

More La Nina Information at:

http://www.enn.com/climate/article/24177

http://www.elnino.noaa.gov/lanina_new_faq.html

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/90day/fxus05.html

http://www.ccb.ucar.edu/lanina/summary.html