Updated 2/4 6:30 PM – I just got the latest update in for all of the Golden Snowball cities. Albany is not reporting this last update so it’s hard to tell if Rochester snowed it’s way out of last place or not. It comes down to whether Albany has any new snowfall to report. I’ll post new snow updates as they come in from the National Weather Service. For now we’ll take The Roc out of last place 😉
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I finally got a chance to update the snow totals from this latest round of snowfall and it looks like Rochester has dropped to the bottom of the snow hill again. I’ve also been seeing some controversy after reading around and looking at some of the snow totals from all of the areas all around Rochester.
You all know me and that I stay out of the controversy. OK, most of my friends and family will disagree with that last statement but I do try to on the site anyways 😉 I came across one snow map that was showing all of the cities surrounding the Rochester area yesterday as I was looking around for some snow stats and they were all higher than what is being reported. I’ll leave it at that 😉
Here are some totals from yesterday and also some of the storm totals for the 2 days. As always keep in mind my fuzzy math 😉 All of the cities set a date record for yesterday except for Rochester. The first number is the new record and the last is the old record and the year it was set.
Date Snow Records That Were Broken Yesterday 2/3
Albany – 11.9 R – 5.5 1892
Binghamton – 8.8 R – 6.8 1956
Syracuse – 8.8 R – 7.0 1990
Buffalo – 8.2 R – 8.0 2013
Snow Storm Totals for All Cities From 2/1 thru 2/2
Buffalo – 2/1 4.4 – 2/2 8.2 Total = 12.6
Albany – 2/1 Trace – 2/2 11.9 Total = 11.9
Binghamton – 2/1 1.9 – 2/2 8.8 Total = 10.7
Syracuse – 2/1 1.2 – 2/2 8.8 Total = 10.0
Rochester – 2/1 2.3 – 2/2 6.1 Total = 8.4
I don’t see Rochester hanging at the bottom of the snow hill for too long. The snow contest is still close enough and it would only take a snowflake over 5 inches for Rochester to sled into second place. First place will take a whole lot more with the lead that Buffalo has right now. All in all it’s still a close snow race with plenty of time left in the snow season for any of the cities to win. Yes, even Albany 😉
Have an Awesome Day all and I will probably get another update in a little later…
We go from deflated balls to deflated snow totals… I swear no one from Buffalo had anything to do with it!
Yeah, sure General. Coming from a guy who puts SU shirts on snowmen and then destroys them I don’t know if I can believe you had nothing to do with it. I’m guessing you started up the plane engines right before they were taking the measurements 🙂
I work on the grounds of the ROC airport and very closely with AirCon and other county officials. The reason for the low readings is that the measuring devices at ROC are pretty much out in the open. So, when we get “fluffy” snow as opposed to the wet and heavy stuff … and there are strong winds like this past storm … ROC tends to get low official readings.
Far as composite stats go though, I feel it is what it is … I’m sure there are certain weather conditions that affect the readings at the other cities also … heck if you want to get technical about it, many parts of BUF got over 100 inches that first storm alone. Better to stick with the standard of what each airport shows. Otherwise how would you accurately compare to years past ?
I’d also like to point out though that this illustrates an issue I have always had with Climate Change Data. Many of the temperature readings are taken around the world from stations on asphalt etc. … I wonder how those reading station locations affect the data being collected for that compared to data collected from those areas before asphalt was so common? Just sayin’
Bruce, Thanks for taking the time to give us some input on what goes on. I took a spotters training course that was given by the National Weather Service and I do understand some of what you are saying especially when it comes to strong winds. I think the biggest problem and I’m sure you know better than I do is that all of the snow spotters numbers were a lot higher all around and in Rochester. The biggest thing that stood out when I was looking around was how consistent the spotters snow totals were to each others measurements in the area. Thanks again for the input Bruce 🙂
First, I want to say thank you very much for all the work you do on this site. I thoroughly enjoy reading along every season, and have done so for the past few years.
However, I will be honest, as a Rochestarian, I have noticed both this year and last that the snow totals reflected here are not representative of the snowfall in Rochester, and sometimes are significantly off. I live less than a mile from the airport, and it is completely unrealistic to believe that this storm dropped only 8.5 inches on Rochester. This is at LEAST 4 inches less than my conservative estimate, and many places to the south, west, east, and north of the airport are reporting totals 50 to 100% higher than this figure.
I know it would be incredibly difficult to do, but what about a composite figure for all 5 GSB cities? Take the NWS airport numbers and add one or two reliable measures (local TV stations or governments) from a point as close to the urban center of each city. This would provide a more accurate assessment of the total snowfall for all GSB cities.
Again, I thoroughly enjoy the website, I just feel that this is such an egregious deviation from reality that I needed to comment on it. Thank you again for all your hard work, don’t worry, I will keep reading (I’ll just add another 5 or so inches to the Rocs totals!)
Patrick Chase
Thanks Patrick and I think a lot of folks from Rochester are adding a little extra also. It would be hard to do what you are suggesting I think but it is a good idea. Personally I think the people that do take the measurements get it pretty close or as close as possible a majority of the time. This happens in all of the cities including Syracuse where every now and then the numbers don’t make sense.
I think that Bruce Hyde gave a pretty good explanation of what goes on at the airport and hard it can be at times. JMO