2005 Controversy at
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The Controversy Continues as I Beg for Forgiveness

It seems every year something controversial comes up in the news.  Last year it was about some of the smaller cities having more snow than the larger ones.  An article can be read at News 10 Now about it.  I'm sure that has been going on since the contest started back in the late 70's.  This year it is articles on the stats for the smaller city contest which are at the Fulton Daily News and at The Palladium Times . 

First let me say that the media is great for the revival of the contest, making people aware of it by doing articles about it.  That being said I wish they would visit the site when quoting the sites stats instead of getting the stats from other articles that were written about it.  If that happened they would of seen that the stats that were posted for Fulton when the contest was called were posted as Fulton = 147.7 - 185 unofficial.  I know it's not the best way for me to start something new but my side of the story is below.

The New "Wow You Got That Much Snow Contest" Controversy

This year I decided to start another contest up which would include some of the smaller cities.  Was it a mistake?  I'm hoping it wasn't and that it will continue and grow.  When I started the smaller city "Wow you got that much snow" contest I posted on the website that anyone who wanted to nominate a smaller city for the contest could email us and we would take it into consideration.  I figured with all the emails we receive about a smaller city getting more snow than the larger cities the emails would be totaling up faster than the snowfall totals do.  Didn't happen.  We only received a handful of emails.  Then narrowed it down to the city's we ended up with for the season which were Watertown, Utica, Fulton and Oswego.  That was the first problem with the new contest.  Trying to get people to nominate their city.

The second problem which was the bigger one was trying to find stats.  NOAA is great at listing a ton of stats for a lot of city's but I couldn't find any stats on the city's that made their debut in the first Wow Contest.  I use NOAA as the official totals for the Golden Snowball Contest and wanted to do the same with the smaller city's.  I thought about blowing off the smaller city contest but figured I would see if I could get some help somewhere.  I asked around but no one seemed to know where there might be stats for the smaller city's.

I thought maybe I could get some help from some of the weather spotters from the city's that were in the contest and put a post on the website that I needed help with snow totals. No help was offered.  I remembered a website that I visited that kept the stats for Fulton and Oswego's snowfall.  I contacted the site owner who has a Bachelors of Science in Meteorology.  He was more than willing to help out and did throughout the season.  Thanks Anthony, it was appreciated big time.  Throughout the season I looked for stats for Watertown and Utica and couldn't come up with any.  They could be out there somewhere but I couldn't find them and I didn't get any emails from spotters offering to help out.  My guess is that people weren't aware that help was needed because I'm sure they would of been more than willing to help out if they'd known.  I know, I'm rambling, get use to it.  That's what I do best ; ) 

Utica Stats

Finally the time was getting close to calling the season over and I had another look around to see what I could come up with for totals on the smaller city's.  Mainly Utica and Watertown.  After searching for about an hour I found a website that had some information on Utica's snowfall which is News Channel 2.  The last update they had on their site was from April 3rd.  I was going to contact the person there that had the stats down but he has since left.  Anyways, that's where the stats came from Utica.

Watertown, Oswego and Fulton Stats

The same day I came across the Stats from NOAA in Buffalo that were finally posted on April 18th.  At last check Binghamton NOAA still hasn't posted the stats unless I'm looking in the wrong place.  They would have Utica's stats also.  Anyways, I thought great!  I now have them all.  Watertown was the one that I really needed and I grabbed the stats which are a rough estimate of what the finals will be.  I also noticed that Oswego and Fulton were on there and I was shocked to see the big difference.  Oswego was pretty close to what I had so that wasn't a problem but Fulton's stats were showing 185 and I had 147.7.  That's a big difference.  Looking at some of the other places near by were reporting 142, 140 and Oswego showing 128 I decided to put down 147.7 - 185 unofficial which is still on the Golden Snowball main page.  I'm hoping next year the local snow spotters will be aware of the contest and I can just check my emails for the stats everyday.  Wouldn't that be nice? 

To answer Steve Yablonski's question "What Happened to The Rest of The Snow"?  Well Steve, I goofed up.  I was too busy at the time with my real job that I didn't have time to measure it.  I ended up putting the snow in my pocket to measure it later on.  Dumbest thing I ever did ; )