Testing!

4:30 PM Update – Light snow is just starting to come down at my house just outside the Syracuse are. I’ve been watching some of the totals for this storm start to drop a little so I think it’s time to play the Guesstimate Game. Just post a comment as to what you think the snow totals will be lets say by the end of tomorrow 2/13 at around 6 pm when NOAA does an update. Here are my snow guesstimates:

Rochester – 10
Syracuse – 8
Buffalo – 7
Binghamton – 7
Albany – 5

So many times this season I have gotten my hopes up for a decent snowfall or storm only to have it turn out to be a bust. With this coming storm I’m going to play it down at least in my head anyways. That said, BRING IT ON!!!!!! Once again naughty words are starting to be mentioned in the forecast for most of the cities. Those words that I find offensive are CHANGE OVER, MIXTURE, MIX, SLEET, RAIN and the dreaded F word FREEZING RAIN. Do you know how much snow we have lost because of those words this season? Well I don’t either but my guess is we missed out on some good snow totals because of the mixed precipitation and once again the words are starting to pop up for this coming storm. I’m hoping that now that I whined about it, it won’t happen.

I think all of the Golden Snowball cities are under a winter storm warning now and this is the chance for some changes in the line-up that we have all been waiting for. OK, some of us. Who knows, there may even be a new leader by the end of tomorrow. Rochester is still only 4.7 inches away and a hit here and a miss there with the snow bands that will be coming through it’s a possibility. I think Binghamton might have a big enough lead to fend off any snowballs that Albany throws at them but there is a slight chance Bingo could find themselves at the bottom again. Of course Binghamton piled up a lot of snow last year at this time during the Valentines day storm. That’s what’s fun about these storms. Anything can happen.

The main thing I think for the snow lovers is that the warm air has to stay out of this storm. Right now from reading around it’s going to go something like light snow, heavy snow, a mix of sleet and freezing rain, rain and then light snow again. Way too many items on this storms menu if you ask me and I just fired the cook. The new menu is SNOW and lots of it 🙂 I wonder if turning on the air conditioner and opening up the doors and windows will keep the warm air away from my house so that it’s all snow? Kids, I’m kidding! Don’t do it! That goes for you too General Steve. Ummm, let me know if it works though if you do try it 😉 I personally think the cold air will hold it’s ground long enough to keep this a mostly snow event but keep in mind I’m normally clueless so check with your favorite local forecasters to see what’s really going to happen.

DRIVE SAFE!!!!!!!!!!! Looking at the radar the chances are your going to be driving home from work with the possibility of some slippery roads. It looks like some light to moderate snow is getting close to Buffalo and light snow getting close to Rochester as I’m typing. The heavier stuff looks to be still just south of NY in PA but moisture looks to be building up in NY so once again check the forecasts out to see what time things will really start to get going and remember SNOW MEANS SLOW Drive careful all and have a great safe day.

TV 9 WSYR here in Syracuse has a pretty good discussion going on right now about this storm and they normally give some pretty good updates throughout the day. It’s definitely worth checking out at http://community.9wsyr.com/blogs/weather_discussion/archive/2008/02/11/2520151.aspx

Just a quick night time post – My daughter Danielle just sent me a few Oswego snow pictures from Suny Oswego this evening. It looks like the snow band is starting to shift a little to the south and is now in Fulton. Wouldn’t it be nice if it could come farther south to the Syracuse area so I can take some pictures???

Yup, and more!!! It doesn’t get anymore exciting than this does it? First off We moved the forum a couple of weeks ago in hopes of stopping the spammers and I just wanted to let everyone know that you are more than welcome to join the new one. The forum is a good place to check out what weather is coming our way and also some good updates as to what the weather is doing in all the cities as it’s actually happening. It’s been a little slow lately due to the snow or should I say lack of snow but it always picks up when the weather gets pumping. All of the members that visit and post are fantastic people and fun. We have a couple of meteorologists that keep us updated along with several students and the group is of all ages. In other words your not going to find a better group of people than at the GSB forum. You can join the forum at http://www.222goldensnowball.com/yabb/ Note REMOVE THE 222 from the website address.

Our 2007 – 2008 Snowfall Predictions

I was just looking at the Generals and my own 2007 – 2008 winter predictions and the General who is really Steve Madsen from Buffalo is looking pretty good right now compared to me. I still think we have a lot of snow coming our way but the way this season has been going lately with too many warm ups and freezing rain events I have to admit I’m a little concerned about hitting my snow totals for some of the Golden Snowball cities. Here are both the Generals and my own forecast for this seasons snowfall.

The Generals 07-08 GBS Predictions:
Syracuse – 125
Buffalo – 105
Rochester – 95
Bingo – 85
Albany – 65

Pats Golden Snowball 2007 – 2008 Predictions

Syracuse -151 inches
Buffalo – 123 inches
Rochester – 121 inches
Binghamton – 106 inches
Albany – 72 inches

Will there be another Valentines Day storm? Lets hope not for the fact that a lot of plans had to be canceled and the kids had a snow day last year and didn’t get to have their Valentines day fun. It’s looking like this year it might come a couple of days before Valentines day. I’m hearing and reading about a storm coming sometime tomorrow. Remember last year all of the cities got some snow and Binghamton had close to 17 inches and a couple of other cities picked up over a foot of snow. So far they aren’t calling for that much, only 3 – 6, 4 – 8 inches is a good possibility for most of us which is just a dusting compared to what Oswego and the north country had been getting. Anyways, keep an eye on the weather for tomorrow because it could be getting a little nasty and I’m sure all of the local meteorologists will be keeping us all up to date as it comes closer.

I’ve been checking out the Suny Oswego webcam at http://www.oswego.edu/webcam/index.html quite a bit the last couple of days and no doubt it’s messy there to say the least. I’m not sure what their totals are up to from the lake effect snow that they are getting hammered with but it has to be pretty high. It’s a pretty big and intense band that has been just hanging over the north. Here is a picture I just got off the Suny Oswego cam at about 3:00 pm. On a normal day (whatever that is) that picture would be crystal clear.

I was hoping it would have dropped south enough last night and come down to Syracuse. Well it didn’t happen so Rochester remains within a tiny storm away from taking the lead and in reality all of the cities still have a shot at the Golden Snowball trophy. Have a great day everyone!

It was a pretty crazy day around CNY with the winds and a little bit of snow for all of the Golden Snowball cities. Rochester just isn’t gonna give up and once again they move closer to taking over the lead. They melted away just over an inch of the lead that Syracuse has on them and are now only 4.7 inches away from DaCuse. I’m starting to get the feeling that an upset is in the makes this season.

The snow totals will be interesting come the end of tomorrow. There is plenty of lake effect snow falling up north and if or should we say when that band drops down someone is going to pick up some quick snow. If it stalls out once it drops down there is a good chance that Syracuse may be able to fend off Rochester but of course The Rock might pick up some of the LES also. My guess is that Binghamton is hoping that the snow band heads far enough south to distant them self from last place Albany. Of course the way things have been going the snow will probably disappear before it reaches any of us 🙁

How windy was it today? I have a bird bath outside that weighs a ton and I have had it for at least 5 years I guess. I ran over to Best Buy to get something for my laptop and when I got back it was blown over. That hasn’t happened since I have had it and I would love to know how strong the wind gust was that blew it over.

I just updated the stats from NOAA and they are as of about 4 – 5 pm. I’ll try to get an early day update tomorrow and hopefully there will be plenty of snowflakes to add if that snow band drops south. Have a great night all!

Rochester continues to move up the snow hill attempting to dethrone Syracuse as snow king. Right now they are only 6 inches behind DaCuse and it seems that every little snowfall that Syracuse gets they get just a little more. This winter has been one of the most boring ones I can remember and hopefully things will start changing.

Looking at the snow stats a couple of things stick out. All of the cities with the exception of Buffalo are still ahead of last seasons snowfall stats for this time in the season and Buffalo is right around last years snow totals. Last season started out pretty much snow less other than Buffalo’s October storm then things started picking up pretty good. For all the snow lovers lets hope that things start picking up again and don’t for a second think this season is over yet. Below are how the snow totals ended for the 2006 – 2007 season. You can see there is still a lot more to come.

Syracuse – 140.2
Rochester – 107.2
Buffalo – 88.9
Binghamton – 78.6
Albany – 45.9

Below is the amount of snow we have left if this season follows last seasons snowfall pattern. Keep one thing in mind though, this season hasn’t followed last season too often so far.

Syracuse – 70.4 inches
Rochester – 43.4
Buffalo – 32.5
Binghamton – 37.1
Albany – 5.5

My monitor never did wake up and it will be laid out to pasture when the ground unfreezes. Is the ground even frozen with this mild winter we have had??? Anyways I’m on monitor #3 right now since Monday when NIMO shut the power off for a few hours around here. I did the right thing too and that’s what ticks me off. I unplugged the computers and laptop so that the power surge when they turned the power back on wouldn’t blow anything. So much for that. I then brought down the kids monitor from upstairs and hooked it up, plugged it in and it worked. One problem, everything was blurry. So I find some glasses which I use every now and then, increase the font size because the monitor seems like it is about an 8 inch monitor after using a 19 inch one and everything is still blurry. I play with the setting to try to clear the picture up with no success and finally say a few cuss words, grab my jacket and head over to Walmart to see if they have the monitor I saw online in the store.

What is it with my area and monitors? Do they sell out that fast> I go to War mart’s computer section which is probably smaller than my living room and always seems to have 90 percent of the people that are in the store in that section. I look around the area (like 3 times) and only see 3 monitors. Only 3 %&**%& monitors in the whole store and all of them are above my price range. After searching for about 5 minutes for someone in the dept I ask the kid if there are any out back and No is the answer. Off to staples I head which is just around the corner.

One good thing about staples is there is normally someone more than willing to help out if it’s not too busy. All in all 3 people offered help including the manager at one point and I declined and told them I was already being helped. So I look around at all the monitors most of which had NOT IN STOCK signs on them. I think 3 of the monitors on display didn’t have the sign on them and of those only one was in my price range so the kind women offered to print me out the specs like I asked and I looked them over. After looking them over I told her I would take one. She said she would go see if they had it in stock. Of course I’m thinking well there is no OUT OF STOCK sign so most likely they will have one. Nah, my luck doesn’t work like that. She mentions that she could order it from another store and have it shipped and they do ship fast from Staples and it’s normally free shipping on orders over $50 bucks. I thought about it for a minute or two and decided I didn’t review the monitor so I would hold off. Of course I had a back-up plan in mind. Call my Aunt who lives right down the street and see if I could use her monitor for a week or so until I find one I like. I actually ordered the computer for her and for whatever reason was thinking that I had her get a bigger monitor but now such luck. It’s a 15 inch like the kids is. So that’s the one I’m using right now because the picture at least comes in clear and isn’t blurry with or without me wearing glasses. I’m hoping to find a monitor in the next couple of days but man what is it with 2 fairly big stores having only 5 monitors between them.

PS: If you see a lot of mispelled words it’s most likely because I can’t see what I am typing so bear with me. Kind of like a “my dog ate my homework excuse” to get away with bad grammer Huh 🙂

Ok, end of my ranting and have a Great weekend everyone.

Sorry about the lack of updates but my computer monitor is taking an extra long nap. For what ever reason it has been slower than normal coming out of sleep mode lately and as of yesterday morning it’s been snoring away 🙁 So far I have been unable to wake the monitor from sleep mode by unplugging it, dis-connecting it and a couple of other things I’ve tried but I’ll keep trying today. Right now I’m stuck working off of my laptop and it takes forever getting any work done plus most of the stuff I need is on the regualr computer so bear with me as far as updates are concerned.

All the stats should be up to date now with no changes at all in the snow totals for all of the cities. That could change soon though! Snow is in the forecast for the next few days and it will be interesting to see what happens and if any of the other cities will make a move on Syracuse. More to come when I get a new monitor 🙂