GoldenSnowball.com - A Fun New York Snow Contest

Cold and snowy describes yesterday and last night best. All of the city’s added to their totals with Rochester being the winner of the last round. They picked up just under half a foot of snow and came in with 5.4 inches. Syracuse placed second with 4.1 inches of new snow reported so far. Binghamton had 1.9, Buffalo had 1.4 inches and Albany had .3. Rochester is still on a pretty good roll and continues to pick up a little bit on Syracuse’s lead and extend their lead on Buffalo.

A lot of the schools were closed today because of the cold weather. Right now it’s minus 20 degrees with the wind chill in Syracuse. MSNBC has a reporter in the city covering the weather and just watching her out there makes me cold. Keep the kids inside today because it doesn’t take long for frostbite to set in and there is already a report of a child at Hancock airport that is being treated for frostbite on the Syracuse.com website at http://www.syracuse.com/news/updates/.

Enough about the weather though. Mega Bucks in the Mega Millions is the talk of the day. The lottery is up to 355 million dollars. That’s $355,000,000.00! Just a dollar and a dream. Make that just a dollar, a dream and a heart attack if I was to ever win it. Just imagine what you can do with all that money. Ummm, pretty much anything you want to. Of course after taxes and whatever else they take out it will probably be around 130 million but hey, I’m not all that greedy. I’ll take it, set the kids up for life, set the family and some friends up for life, start a charity and probably still have enough left to play around with. Yeah I know, stop with the dreaming and get on with the snow contest 🙂 I’m curious as to what you all would do with that much money??? Good Luck to all of you who have that dollar and dream going tonight and don’t forget the snowman when you win. Have a great day all.

5pm Update – Just a quick update and heads up for those in the Syracuse area getting ready to head home. Channel 9 is reporting a 25 car pile up on the Onondaga Parkway and they are saying it is closed until at least 6pm so find another way to travel. http://www.9wsyr.com/content/news/breakingnews.aspx?content_id=26042cc7-5de1-45fa-9e97-3285e882c756 With the way the wind and snow is and will continue to be, tonight is a good night to stay home. Temps are expected to fall between 15 – 29 below zero making things even more dangerous out there. It wouldn’t surprise me if the kids in some of the CNY school districts have a day off tomorrow because of the unusual temps for March. Stay safe all!

Morning – An inch of snow has fallen in the last half hour in my neck of the woods. That on top of what fell overnight is more than enough to safely say that Syracuse has reached it’s annual snowfall for the season on Feb 5th this season. As usual nothing is official until NOAA puts out the stats later in the early evening. That’s why the totals up above don’t reflect Syracuse being over the 111.9 yet. Looking back at the way the season started I have to admit that I was a little skeptical of my prediction that Syracuse would have an above average snowfall season this year.

Remember that the stats for annual snowfall for all of the city’s is based on a 30 year look back period that is on a rolling 10 year system. In other words NOAA’s averages are from a 30 year period of 1970-1971 through 2000 if I’m not mistaken and remember I normally am 🙂 2000 would have been the last update on the yearly averages with a new 10 year average coming out in 2010. Personally I would rather see the averages updated every year on NOAA but that’s not the way it is. There are stats out there though that has the average for all the years that were recorded.

That all said it will be interesting to see how we all do the next day or two. Cold air, make that really cold air is expected to move into CNY from Canada. It will be interesting to see if any of the cities set some low temperature records in the next day or two. Hard to believe it is March isn’t it?

Here in the Syracuse area it’s been blue skies, light snow, heavy snow with a couple of brief white outs and blue Sky’s once again. All in a matter of an hour or so. As always, take it easy on the roads and drive slow. The weather will be changing off and on and with the wind and blowing snow it could be a bit treacherous at times. Hey, have a super week all and stay warm!

The Snowman on Mount Fremont – Sorry about the Close Up BTW
and Notice How I dyed my Beard Grey Just for the Pictures

OK, Maybe Not a Real Mountain but it Still Needs to Be Conquered

Have a Great Weekend All and Go SU!!!

Way to go Rochester! It took awhile but for the first time this season Rochester has slipped by Buffalo by 2/10 of an inch. I’ve been saying it for awhile now. Don’t ever count Rochester out because they are well known for their late season runs and they are on one of them right now. For those of you in Buffalo, blame it on the General of Buffalo. Ever since he dismissed his army of snowmen, or did they melt, Buffalo has been on bigger down hill slide than a skier on Mt. Everest.

It almost makes that freak October snowstorm a wasted event. Ok, really it doesn’t because what ever records were set by the storm should be around for a long time but still with all that early snow it is surprising to see Buffalo in third place now. The big question is how many back and Fourths will take place between now and the end of the snow season between the city’s. Once again I have to say that Syracuse in no way has this locked up and Buffalo and Rochester are slowly chipping away and the couple of inches here and there add up. Sooner or later another storm will be hitting and the stats can change in the blink of an eye so don’t count any of the city’s out yet. Ok, count Albany out and perhaps Binghamton is running out of time but the trophy is up for grabs for the city’s taken and I think we are going to see the lead that Syracuse has get smaller and smaller.

Way to go Rochester, ZR and Jessica for overtaking Buffalo!!! Have a super day all!

I was just updating the stats and noticed a couple of things. Both Buffalo and Rochester are above last years total snowfall amounts for the year. In other words they have already had bettter (worse) season than last year with plenty of snow to go. The big question is whether they can go over thier average snowfall for the season. Early in the season I predicted that they could. Looking at their normal average snowfall up until todays date they are right on course to do so. This is the first time I believe that Rochester has caught up to their average snowfall for this time in the season. Buffalo of with the freak October snow storm they had was ahead of their average for a good part of the season but slipped behind it. They are finally right around the average to date. Syracuse is only 4.7 inches away from hitting their yearly average snow totals and when the next update comes out most likely only a couple of inches away.

A message to all the snow lovers in Buffalo like the General and Jill. You might want to get the snow dance or any other ritual you might have to bring on some snow. Rochester is really on your back now being the closest they have been all season from over taking second place. They are only 2.4 inches away from sliding into second.

I haven’t seen any other predictions but the Goldensnoball.com’s prediction was that most of the city’s would have an above normal snowfall. So far it’s looking like we still have a good chance with 3 of the city’s hitting above normal and it’s a long shot right now with Binghamton and Albany going above their average snowfall totals but not out of the question. Now all we need is for the rest of the cities to get moving and catch Syracuse to make this a race. Have a great day all!

A little summary of what took place last night with the Golden Snowball competition and the Weather Channel. Earlier in the week the weather channel contacted me about perhaps doing an interview sometime on the Abrams and Bettes show. I thought about it for about 2 seconds and said sure, it sounds like fun. Well yesterday afternoon I received a phone call from a man named Pete. A super nice guy saying they wanted to do the interview that evening. For the record I did try to pass this off to Dennis Brogan but couldn’t reach him. He’s use to the media and handles it well 🙂

Calm, cool and smooth. That’s me. NOT! Knowing the show was live panic set in as soon as the phone rang at around 8:42pm. It was Pete telling me to get ready, about a minute to go. I told Pete what a sissy man I am, he laughed and the next thing I know I was talking (stuttering) with Mike Bettes and Stephanie Abrams live on the weather channel. I would of loved to gotten a lot more in about the contest but at least the weather channel knows about it now. It would be fun to hear them mention our contest when they mention our city’s during the forecasts.

I mentioned to my forum members that most likely I will be saying Ummm a lot. I did that during the press conference in December when we awarded the trophy to Jeff, the man in charge of our DPW. One of my forum members said to just pause instead. I told him I would try that but if he hears a long pause, that means I probably passed out from the pressure 🙂 The worse thing was that while I was on the phone doing the interview the call waiting was beeping like crazy. Talk about losing concentration.

The biggest screw up (and there were many) other than the heavy breathing which I will explain in a minute was be trying to mention about how we kid and razz each others city’s and mentioning how someone from Buffalo made snowmans. 1 snowman + 1 snowman = 2 snowmans Yeah I’m an idiot and normally proud of it except for when it comes to national attention on one of my favorite stations, the Weather Channel. As soon as I said snowmans I just rolled my eyes. I did recover the next sentence though and said snowmen. Have I mentioned yet how attractive Stephanie is and man what a smile. Sorry, I’m wondering off a bit.

As for the heavy breathing on the show I blame that on my back. Really! It’s nothing to do with my bad habit of cigarettes. I pulled my back out several days ago from shoveling some of the heavy snow that came down last week. I did send Pete an email apologizing for that and told him that I can’t help it I get excited when talking about snow and the Golden Snowball award.

Ok, enough about last night and a big thanks to the Weather Channel, Stephanie, Mike and Pete for giving us a chance to explain what our contest is. In reality the weather channel is on here most of the day. I’m a little skeptical about putting a link up to the video but what the hay. For those of you who missed it last night and need a chuckle check it out at the Abrams and Bettes section on the weather channel at http://www.weather.com/aboutus/television/abramsandbettes/index.html?from=footer Just scroll down to the video section.

Also Sean Kirst from the Post Standard has a new blog now and he is looking for some feedback about the Winterfest and the Golden Snowball contest at http://blog.syracuse.com/kirst/2007/02/the_golden_snowball_and_winter.html You might of heard me mention Sean’s name. No doubt he is the person most responsible for getting and keeping this contest in the news and growing. Have a super weekend all!