Happy Valentines Day to all you Snow Birds, I mean Love Birds 😉
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Syracuse who???? Rochester has plowed past Syracuse with the latest update from the National Weather Service. So far today the Rock has picked up 10.1 inches of snow blowing away the competition for the day. Binghamton managed to move back into 3rd place but we will see if that lasts long. I’ll get an update in tomorrow morning when all of the totals for today are up to date. Good call Dave and Charles and Way To Go Rochester!!!!
Yes, I am familiar with lake effect snow. I also have a job that keeps me out in the snow all over the greater Rochester area. In fact, the morning of my initial post I had just spent on the east side (where I live) and throughout Webster, where people are claiming all of this snow. You guys realize that when you are measuring the snow piled up at the deepest point along your backyard fence, that is called a drift, not a 3 foot wide band of lake effect snow, right? With all the wind, there were plenty of spots around my house that had 10+…and many that had 2-3.
Granted that wasn’t the airport and maybe they got blasted. But it didn’t look that way on Tuesday. Do you know how NOAA comes up with their precip measurements? I suspect this whole thing boils down to whose snow board/ruler is impacted the most by blowing snow.
Mike, that’s a good point about measuring snow. The Binghamton NOAA has been going around this season and holding sessions for anyone interested in being a snow spotter. I went to the one around here in the Syracuse area and they said pretty much some of what you mentioned.
Here is a brief description of how they want the spotters to measure for them.
* Pick a location away from buildings, trees & streets.
* Try to take a few measurements and pick the average amount.
* Don’t try and pick the biggest snow drift in the yard.
* Measure on a hard surface if possible like plywood, a picnic table or even hard cardboard.
* Give exact amounts, not one inch, 2, 3 etc… Report amounts to the nearest tenth like 1.6 icnhes, etc….
They did cover a lot of other stuff at the session which was pretty interesting. I’m not sure in the Buffalo NOAA is having these classes also but if they are they’re worth checking out for the rookies like myself 😉 They called it Winter Skywarn.
That was a good topic to bring up Mike. I always kid around that the reason Syracuse wins is because we measure the snow before the jets engines start up and the planes take off while the other cities do it after 🙂
I’m jealous of not getting to see the 2-4 inches coming down in an hour. Nothing like seeing that much snow falling. Thanks for all the feedback everyone and this should be a good snow contest this season right to the end of it 🙂
I live on the east side of Rochester and we easily had 10-12″ of snow on Sunday.
I live in webster, Ny and we had at least 15 inches of snow yesterday if not close to 20 inches of snow. The band was not that wide maybe only about 15 miles but it stretched from west Rochester (airport) into wayne county and dumped snow at the rate of 2-4 inches an hour overnight.
I’m on the east side of Rochester and my yard easily had about a foot of snow, so these numbers are quite acurate.
Hey Mike, I’m pretty sure that Rochester’s stats are from the airport and they are official from NOAA (the national weather service. I did get a couple of emails from people in Rochester that gave me a heads up that they were getting quite a bit of snow yesterday. Keep in mind and I’m sure you already know this but when a band of lake effect sets up it can just stay in one spot and drop some heavy snow pretty fast even if it’s just a small band a mile or two wide. It looks like the airport may be the target this season 🙂 Normally I’ll get emails from people saying that they got way more snow than I’m reporting meaning that it hit all around but where they measure from.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for winning-but where do these numbers come from? I live in Rochester and if anyone around here has seen 40 inches, I’ll eat my hat. The last storm brought 5-6 inches everywhere I’ve seen around town. 10+ ? No way.