From the AP: Phil the groundhog, one of the most popular forecasters of all time, didn’t see his shadow today. For those of you who aren’t aware of Phil. He is a groundhog that that predicts whether spring will come early or whether winter will last another 6 weeks. This year Phil didn’t see his shadow which means put away the winter jackets and break out the baseball gloves. Unless you are in the Tug Hill area where the snow probably won’t melt until sometime in July.
This is the first time in something like 7 – 8 years since Phil hasn’t seen his shadow. Most of the time he does. With what’s in the forecast for the next several days it’s hard to even think about Spring coming early this year. We will have to keep an eye on the weather the next couple of months and see how Phil’s forecast pans out this year.
Jill posted a link here that shows a great view of lake effect coming into the Buffalo area which is awesome. It’s at buffalorising.com and the link is http://www.buffalorising.com/city/archives/2007/01/snow_storm_a_gords_eye_vi.php#more Thanks for the link Jill! Awesome pictures.
Syracuse might be in the lead right now but I’m seeing a lot of forecasts that seem to think Buffalo is going to make out the next several days. Right now there is a lot of stuff going on weather wise with warm air coming up from the south and then westernly winds and so on. Obviously you can tell I’m not a weatherman when I use the word “Stuff”. That said there is a good chance if Buffalo has it’s snow shield down they might be able to sled past Syracuse when the cold front come through and from what I have been reading it could be the coldest weather of the season so far. Good Luck Buffalo in this next round!
To Anonymous’s – You can use a nickname which would definitely make it easier to answer questions.
As for the first anonymous question about the snow being drier. I have a post in the forum asking people to help answer questions that I’m not comfortable about answering. In other words that I am clueless about which is normally alot 😉 There are a couple of Meteorologists that visit and I’m sure they will drop by here and answer that question when they can. Not to doubt Jill’s answer of course 😛
Anonymous 2, here are some stats from NOAA http://www.erh.noaa.gov/data/obhistory/KBUF.html
Still wondering…
WeatherManNX01, does Buffalo and Rochester Airports take snowfall measurements every hour like in Syracuse?
I think it’s the opposite, isn’t it? We get Lake Effect snow when the lakes aren’t frozen, so I think the snow would be ‘wetter’ from picking up the moisture from the lake… at least that’s how I would understand it.
If you plug in ‘Lake Effect Snow’ in Wikipedia, there is a huge explanation… the Golden Snowball Contest is even mentioned!
Does Lake Effect snow accumulate faster because it’s drier than non-lake effect snow?
If the above is true, does that mean that Syracuse, Buffalo and Rochester have much higher snowfalls than the rest of the country partly because they get 70% of annual snowfall from lake effect?