Could the snow season be over? Maybe not. There are a few rumors going around about some weather changes coming up just in time for the Easter holiday. Unfortunately not good changes though. Cold air is a possibility according to the General who posted in the forum about a possible event come some time next week. I have to admit with the several spring like teaser days that we have had I’m pretty much ready for the warmer air to set up and stay for more than a few days at a time.

Everyone that visits here must be aware of the snow dance ritual that is performed when the snow isn’t falling like it should be. Well there is also a Spring time ritual which I might be doing in the very near future to see if we can get the warm air to stick around. This ritual is a simple one that only involves a razor and some shaving cream. Yup, The annual ritual of shaving off my beard if you can call it that. I start hating the thing right about now and most likely by the weekend it will be gone : ) The other thing that I can’t wait for and will be breaking out soon are my sandals. Although I have worn them a few times this winter, mostly just to run to the corner store real quick, I’m ready to leave them out now. Of course as Jill and others have mentioned in the past, as soon as we do the annual spring routine it will start snowing.

As for the updates here! The blog had a few bugs which seem to be straightened out now. I also had some intermittent problems with the email to goldensnowball.com so if anyone has emailed the last couple of weeks there might be a chance that I didn’t receive them. If I didn’t respond to your email then that pretty much means I didn’t get them and my apologies. This time in the season I don’t post quite as much but I will be keeping things updated on a more regular basis than I have. Hey have a super weekend all!

Hard to believe isn’t it? If I am correct the first day of spring arrives on Wednesday the 21st. The temperature that morning is suppose to be around 9 degrees. Just a quick reminder that the contest doesn’t end the first day of spring. I know it looks good for Syracuse right now but this is CNY and it does snow in April. Just think if this was a close race and we called it on the first day of Spring and then the next week another city gets enough snow to take the lead we would look kind of stupid wouldn’t we. Yeah I know we do a good job at doing that already.

The good news is that come Thursday look for warmer weather to blow into the area with 50’s in the forecast for the weekend. Will it stick around? I personally don’t think so but it is still kind of nice although cruel to get some teaser days in when we can. On to Rochester.

Rochester has tied their annual snow totals for the season and with what just went through their city a little while ago most likely have passed the average by now. Way to go Rochester. With the start all of us other than Buffalo got off to that wasn’t an easy feat to say the least. Now it’s up to Buffalo to surpass their annual snowfall totals and there is still time left to do it. Another thing I noticed is that 4 of the 5 cities have passed last years totals which as lame as last year was shouldn’t have been as hard as it was to do. Now it’s up to Binghamton to make it 5 for 5 and I don’t see that happening. Albany has a long shot at hitting their annual snowfall total but time is running out on them.

Couch Coach Time. It looks like Syracuse will be setting an NIT attendance record tonight with something like over 23,000 tickets sold so far. For all I know they might have already gone over the record. From what I have read the best bet to avoid parking and traffic problems is to park up at Manley and catch the shuttle from there. Plus you don’t have to deal with the hill. It should be a good game and Syracue will be bringing their A game tonight. I have that feeling. Rautins needs to get on again and I think his 3 pointer welcome back game will be tonight. Personally I think his defense has been pretty good this season. Devo has been playing his butt off and Watkins also has to be on tonight. With the rest of the team doing what they have the last couple of games and getting them two back on form it should be a great Syracuse outing. 3 pointers, made free throw shots, rebounds and a good defense is in the Syracuse forecast for tonight. GO Cuse!!!

On the NCAA brackets one word comes to mind. Embarrassment. My mother is kicking my butt with her bracket picks. She only has 10 losses so far compared to my best sheet which has 12 losses and another that got torn up after Wisconsin lost. The good part is that we split. The bad part is that she picked teams that I have a hard time cheering for. Mostly the ACC teams. I think the only one she didn’t pick was Duke. Yup, even mom knew the 6 seed was ridiculous and had them losing in the first round. Well only one team left from the ACC which is NC and she has them. She does know her Big East teams though and I’m happy to say that I can still cheer for Pitt and Georgetown. Yeah I know arch enemies. Only in the big east. Gotta cheer on the Big East conference when it comes to the NCAA’s. Enough said and have a super week all!

It’s a gorgeous day outside with the temps expected to hit around the mid to upper 40’s today. Tomorrow is suppose to be in the mid 50’s. These are what I call the teaser days for the fact that Mother Nature is doing just that to us. Teasing us into thinking that the cold weather is a thing of the past. We all know better though. It’s only March and it won’t last. Still that doesn’t matter because most of us are ready for the warmer weather and any days that we can squeeze in between the snowfall we will take. It’s almost like the beginning of winter when we figure the longer we can go with nice weather the shorter the winter seems.

Look for a few warmer than normal days followed by, well, the same Ole, same Ole that we have been getting. A cold front is suppose to move in toward the end of the week with a chance of some snow. Unfortunately it looks like it is going to be the normal freezing, windy St. Patrick’s day as usual. It comes down to would you rather have it around 40 degrees and raining or 30 degrees and snowing while hitting the St Patty’s Day parade. I’ll take the snow over the rain any day. Last year was one of the coldest I can remember mostly because of the wind and this year looks to be about the same as last year. It’s still several days off so lets all hope the forecast changes before Saturday arrives.

On the basketball front, I’m still a little in shock. I expected to wake up this morning and read, “Oops, We Messed Up, Syracuse is In”. Of course that didn’t happen and it’s almost time to except it. Not quite yet but come tomorrow it will be time to move on.

Watching coach Jim Boeheim during his news conference was pretty tough. Obviously disappointed to say the least. You can watch it at Syracuse.com at http://www.syracuse.com/video/orangebasketball/player/index.ssf?031107_selectionsunday I’m not going to rant anymore about SU not getting in the NCAA tournament. I will say that every poll I have seen online so far thinks SU got the rawest deal of all the teams that were left out.

That said, there are a lot of good teams in the other tournament. The ummm, NIT tourney. Drexel, NC State who just made a good run in the ACC tourney, West Virginia, Air Force and a lot of other good teams. SU got a number 2 seed and will play South Alabama on Wednesday at 7 pm on ESPN. Of course an ACC team got the #1 seed in their bracket, go figure huh.

Now it’s up to the team to get past the initial shock and show the country what the Orange are all about. They have been playing some of their best hoops of the season and they need to keep it going. 5 wins makes the NCAA committee look like the fools that they were when picking the best 34 teams in the country this year. All I can say now is GO SU, it’s time to kick some Nit butt!!! Have a great week all!

Syracuse goes 7-4 the last 11 games including a win over Georgetown ranked #10 and they are out of the NCAA tournament. Plus a win in the BE tourney. Overall record 22-10

Syracuse has a record of 10-6 in the Big East

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Duke goes 4-7 the last 11 games losing in the first round of the ACC tourney and they are a number 6. No wins in the ACC Tourney! Overall record 22-10

Duke has a record of 8-8 in the ACC Conf

* I’m not saying Duke shouldn’t be in the tourney but a 6 seed is ^%$^#@(%^ and Syracuse not being in is more %$&((%#^*

ENOUGH SAID! I’m TICKED to say the least and better stop while I’m ahead :)!

More to come when I cool off 🙁

Even Sean Kirst’s son gets it better than the NCAA Tournament committee does – More at http://blog.syracuse.com/kirst/2007/03/syracuse_didnt_make_it_a_12yea.html Hopefully we will see Liam playing hoops for SU in another 6 years or so down the road 🙂

Here is a link with some comparisons to teams that made it http://www.syracuse.com/orangebasketball/weblog/index.ssf?/mtlogs/syr_orangebasketball/archives/2007_03.html#243620

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!