Da Cuse is in the Igloo, err house. Syracuse has finally for the first time this season taken the lead in the Golden Snowball contest. You know it’s a good snow race when Syracuse was near the bottom most of the season and at the bottom at one point. Can they hold on to the top spot til the finish. Nah! Not the way the season has been going so far. I expect several more lead changes 🙂
Buffalo isn’t even close to throwing in the shovel yet and I don’t think Rochester is either. Rochester was the big surprise with the weekend snowfall only posting about 6 1/2 inches but I’m sure they will be winning several rounds this season to keep it close. Even our neighbors to the South, Binghamton is still holding tough and post some snow just about every day now. I’m going to keep saying it! It’s going to be a great snow race for the 2009 – 2010 season.
GO CUSE!!!!
Very small sample size Jake. I went to school in Buffalo for a few years and noted that Buffalo got less snow than Rochester.
They are very close to the same. If you live in southern Erie county or on the eastern end of the Rochester metro, you receive a lot more snow than the rest of the area.
Lake Erie freezes over usually, so the lake effect snow stops in Buffalo around January and February. Lake Ontario, however, never freezes so the lake effect just keeps coming all winter for Rochester and Syracuse.
For the record, here are Rochester's snowfall totals from 98-03. Buffalo's are in parenthesis for comparison.
98-99: 111.6 (100.5)
99-00: 110.7 (63.6)
00-01: 133 (158.7)
01-02: 58.1 (132.4)
02-03: 135.2 (111.3)
So 3 out of those 5 years Rochester had more snowfall than Buffalo.
I find it interesting that Rochester and Syracuse both get more snow than Buffalo, I lived in Rochester from 1998-2003 and there was very little snow… just a lot of wind and freezing rain. Buffalo ran away with snow accumulations in those years… funny that Syracuse had more sunny days in Rochester those years which is amazing for a city that supposedly only has 18 sunny days a year….
100% right Chris. I mean look at Webster, only a few miles away from downtown Rochester. 58.1 inches of snow this season, which is a much more accurate representation of the city as a whole. Over 20 inches more than what the airport has.
I wonder, since Webster and the Rochester airport are on opposite sides that an average could be taken of the two to get a much more accurate total. The websterweather.com site would be worth checking out to see how accurate they are.
Thank you for the link 🙂
Another poster from Syracuse here. Out of all major suburbs of Syracuse….only Cicero ranks higher for snowfall totals than the Syracuse Airport. Camillus, Geddes, Onondaga Hill, Westvale, Fayetteville, Manlius, Liverpool, most of Baldwinsville, Van Buren, DeWitt, East Syracuse, Solvay, Nedrow, Lyncourt, Minoa, Lakeland, most of the populated parts areas in Clay and Mattydale all are receive less snow than the Syracuse airport. Meaning about 375,000 people in the Syracuse urbanized area receive less snow than the airport reports each year.
The opposite is true for Rochester and Buffalo. Buffalo's snowiest suburbs are Orchard Park, East Aurora, West Seneca and Hamburg. If Buffalo's Airport was located in one of its top 3 snowiest suburbs… Buffalo would almost always win the Golden Snowball.
Out of all the Rochester suburbs, Chili, (where Rochester's airport is located) is probably the second or third least snowiest suburb.
Jason, "Patrick, vicinity to the lake really means nothing when it comes to lake effect."
I was throwing stuff out there all in fun. Obviously I know the closer the city doesn't mean better LES. If that were the case Syracuse wouldn't be KING 😉
I also know your not trying to change things. All in fun and no problem on my end at all. Most of the points made in this thread were all good ones. Umm, except yours of course
JASON, I'M KIDDING :)))
Patrick, vicinity to the lake really means nothing when it comes to lake effect. It's all dependent on how the geography and how the wind blows. And that's just not favorable for the Rochester airport, when it comes to getting a lot of snow.
I wasn't proposing you change how this competition works, since I do enjoy it as is. I was merely stating in Rochester there is a huge discrepancy in snowfall generally, and the airport is almost always on the short end of the stick.
VirtuallyLucid,
"No, it isn't -really- trademarked. Use it at your leisure. I just thought it was funnier that way."
It was funny and I did laugh 🙂 That's why I had to question it. Hmmm, not a bad name for a drink though in one of the GSB cities. I think we'll have to see if we can get all the CNY bars to name a drink that???
Thanks for the Kudos 😉 My aunt and uncle were just in from Vegas during the first storm before Christmas and got stuck here a couple of extra days. Man was my Uncle in a HURRY to get out of Syracuse, lol.
ZR, Thanks for the kind words and it's always been a pleasure having you here to help out and and give the info that you have pretty much from the beginning 🙂
That's what makes this site fun is everyone chipping in with input and comments. I'm just the stats keeper for the cities and supposedly when Syracuse does lose the city has something planned for the winner 🙂
Winterade(TM)?
No, it isn't -really- trademarked. Use it at your leisure. I just thought it was funnier that way.
This is my first winter here in The ROC and when I came across your site, I was really quite happy to see a fun way of keeping track of the accumulation. I like sharing the stats with folks back home in Vegas. You do a good job of making it a blast.
Thanks for that.
Funny, I didn't see anyone talk about how "unfair" it was when Syracuse was last.
Buffalo, not Syracuse, has the most snow recorded for any season at 199.4.
It's kind of interesting looking at the old snow stats and seeing Binghamton has won a few times before the contest was made. Last I checked Binghamton is not in a Lake Effect snow belt. Rochester had the most in the late 90s, and Buffalo had more than any city in the 2001-02 season.
It's not just Syracuse, Syracuse, Syracuse. It's not just Lake Effect, Lake Effect, Lake Effect. Is Syracuse "helped" by its location? Sure. But complaining about that is like complaining about Phoenix, AZ being hot because it's in the desert. There just isn't much we can do about it.
The one thing that could make this a little more interesting though would be calculating percentage from historical average.
Cathy, I'm not sure what city you want the stats for so I'll post them all. Below the links tells you how to get the info.
For Buffalo and Rochester:
http://www.weather.gov/climate/index.php?wfo=buf
For Syracuse and Binghamton:
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/climate/index.php?wfo=bgm
Albany:
http://www.weather.gov/climate/index.php?wfo=aly
1) Check the – Preliminary Monthly Climate Data (CF6)
2)Click on the city
3)Chose recent or archived data and pick the month
4) hit Go
Anon, one last thing, if you look at these stats, last season (08-09) the AIRPORT received more snow than Webster, so it wasn't the worst place to be measuring our totals for the contest…
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/buf/spotter_gv0809.html
Anon, here is a link to about as much information / stats on suburban areas via snow spotters from NOAA. There are tabs across the top and you can just click on the region you are looking for:
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/buf/gvspotters.php
Also, there is tons more information on this page as well…
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/buf/nws_buffalo_snowspotter_network.htm
I have been a participating member in this contest since back when I think just Patrick, myself, and the General cared about it. It was impressive to check back and see 19 comments today. I think Patrick has done a great job making it about as fair as possible, by using NOAA weather stations for official measurements. Heck if Patrick would take my word for it as far as snow measurements, ROC would win this contest every year! Patrick also works hard to keep it fun on his own time and to that, hats off to him!
VirtuallyLucid sums it up best!
Also, the airport locations and mix of our snowfall (Lake Effect, Clippers, Noreaster's etc) I think are what make this contest fun. If you could predict which areas get the most snow and measure there, it would take a lot of fun out of this contest.