I posted last night (see below) about some kind of weather phenomenon going on while I was out and about. Well after reading around and reading some comments left here by visitors it turns out that what I was seeing are called Light Pillars. It really was an awesome site and there are a few pictures on a couple of sites to show you what I mean. I took several pictures and as usual my night time pictures didn’t come out. One of these days I will read the manual to my new camera. In the mean time check out the pictures at http://www.9wsyr.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=247dfa80-5266-43ad-b5d7-2d3f5d1c8fdf and you will see how cool it looked. There is also a picture on Syracuse.com at http://blog.syracuse.com/news/2008/02/pillars_of_light_illuminate_sk.html I’ll tell you one thing those photographers for the Post Standard have taken some great pictures over the years and being a photo buff I really love checking them out.

According to Sully light pillars are city lights reflecting ice crystals from up above. Usually these are flat crystals that are able to focus the light in pillar shape. They are most common on very cold mornings when there’s moisture present trapped under inversions. Usually it’s only cold enough for super cooled ice droplets, but when there’s ice nuclei present to form a snowflakes, Viola! Thanks Sully 😉 Here is another picture I found and is pretty close to what I was seeing when driving home from Fayetteville last night;

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0209/pillars_tape_big.jpg You can read more about Light Pillars at http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/eyes/pillars.htm

TQ who is a forum member here at Golden Snowball has a contest going on right now which he does every time there is some snow in the forecast for the eastern coast cities. I ALWAYS keep intending to post them here when he has them and once again I missed it. For what ever reason I was thinking the deadline was for later tonight. Anyways here is the link to his site for you all to bookmark for any future contests that he has http://www.newx-forecasts.com Once again I’m sorry for missing the deadline TQ and just leave the info in the comments box nest time to be safe 😉

Weather wise it looks like snow is in the forecast for most if not all of the GSB cities but not a whole lot of it from what I have read. I’m not even going to try and predict how much because I along with a few others have been off quite a bit this year. Maybe if I say not much we will get a ton of snow. SO, not much snow coming our way but check with the pros (not us) to see whats coming our way.

I just check out the snow stats for Madison, Wisconsin and it looks like Syracuse is holding on to a narrow lead with Madison picking up another 1.5 inches of snow to stand at 89.3 for the season. Syracuse is at 94.4 so only about 5 inches separating the two cities. Right now Madison is a whopping 50 inches over their normal snowfall for this time of the year. Does anyone know of any other cities in the United States with a population over 100,000 that is close to Syracuse or above them? Have a Super Weekend All!

It’s most likely the Golden Snowman finally losing his mind. I just got back from grabbing some groceries and on the way home I noticed a bunch of white trails in the sky going vertically and horizontally and NO they weren’t clouds but looked bright white. Anyone have any ideas as to what it is? Whatever it is it’s still going on and if you look out you might be able to see what I’m talking about. I’m just curious if anything scientific is going on tonight like a comet, shooting stars, a satellite falling down or something? Hopefully it’s not that satellite we shot down a week or so ago deciding to make re-entry in CNY. Yeah I know I’m just losing it. I’ll try downloading some pictures I took but most likely all that we will see will be black like most of my pictures come out. Update – I just downloaded the pictures and they did come out black as I thought they would. Below are the original pictures along with a Dell image expert quick edit which just brightened them up. Nothing else was altered.

This first set of pictures I was shooting almost straight over head at the sky and the beam was going horizontally and pretty much just stationary. Just click the pictures to enlarge them.

Original Picture

Brightened Up

The next 3 sets of pictures are all shot pretty much in the same direction and this set of pictures really shows the vertical rays or whatever it is.

Original

Brightened

This set of pictures is pretty much the same location as the one below but not taking the picture as high in the sky as the one below.

Original

Brightened Up

This set of pictures you can barely see the rays or what ever coming down with clouds in the background.

Original

Brightened

I just thought it was a pretty cool sight to see and I am really curious as to what they were. They were in all different directions and distances. Any scientists visit here???

OK back to the snow race. The stats are up to date and it looks like the beard stays. Syracuse barely received the 9 inches that I mentioned in a previous post so the beard stays for now and I don’t have to hang out in a closet until Spring comes. Syracuse, Rochester and Albany are back over their average snowfall for this time in the snow season and Binghamton is pretty close. Buffalo still has some catching up to do but snow is still in the forecast so lets hope it happens. The contest is still close and up for grabs.

Binghamton can sleep better tonight because NOAA caught their mistake and have the stats back on track just like I knew they would. When you think of all the stats they keep for the thousands of cities I think they do an awesome job. Have a great day and night all.

I just updated the snow stats for all of the cities in the Golden Snowball contest. Binghamton’s stats are unofficial for the time being.

Unfortunately if I go by NOAA’s stats for Binghamton they lost some snow since this morning. I think they see that Mike has complained a couple of times and they did it on purpose just to get back at him, ha, ha. I know Mike and the others from Bingo will love that. Right now NOAA is showing 55.6 for Binghamton which is including half an inch from today. My guess is that they just made a mistake and for some reason added the new half an inch to the february 25th totals. No biggy and if they don’t catch it I’ll drop them an email tomorrow. Most likely it will be corrected by NOAA’s next update later tonight. I’m pretty confident that the total I have for Binghamton above is what it should be but it’s still unofficial until NOAA shoes it. Enough about that huh?

I did some of my fuzzy math and here is what I have so far for the Guesstimate game and unless some big time lake effect snow starts cranking out myself and some of the others aren’t even close on some of our huesstimates. You would think by the way this season has gone so far we would know better than to go high. Oh well, live and learn I suppose. Problem is most of us will keep going high 🙂 Here’s the stats so far.

Rochester – 8.9
Syracuse – 7.4
Buffalo – 5.8
Albany – 5.5
Binghamton – 5.0

I’m off to catch the Duke game in hopes of watching them drop their 3 game out of the lsat 4 games. Of course I’ll be yelling at the refs most of the time. Congrats to the SU womens basketball team on last night nailbiting win over Georgetown. Hopefully they will get back into the top 25 where they belong when Mondays new rankings come out. Have a great night all!

Late, Late Night Update – I drove around a bit tonight and took a few pictures which most likely won’t come out but the scenery is beautiful with the snow sticking on everything. Lets hope that the LES comes into play to top things off 😉

Snow Reported So Far as of about 4:00 pm. I’ll be missing in action for awhile tonight but will catch up any comments that come through when I get back. Don’t let the totals fool you there is more to come between tonight and tomorrow.

Syracuse – 4.2
Rochester – 3.7
Binghamton – 3.1
Buffalo – 2.6
Albany – 0.4

Updated 2/26 – I’m just going to update this post rather than starting a new one. So far here in the Syracuse area it’s been non stop snow since early this morning. Mostly light heavy snow if that makes any sense. In other words the snow has been falling lightly to moderate throughout the day but a few good heavy blasts of snow would come and go every now and then. The heavy part being the weight of the snow. It’s wet and it is very heavy and I’m glad I shoveled it twice so far to break it up a little. I measured a couple of times coming up with 3 1/2 inches but looking out the window after a big blast just came through around 4:00 pm most likely at least another inch has fallen. The roads around here in the Syracuse area are slick and from reading some other blogs most of CNY is probably the same so take your time getting home and check with your local forecasts as to what is still on it’s way.

Here are the latest storm warnings and watches posted today and tonight by NOAA. Just click the links to read them at NOAA and they are subject to change;

Albany – Winter Weather Advisory
Binghamton – Winter Weather Advisory
Buffalo – Winter Storm Warning
Rochester – Winter Storm Warning
Syracuse – Winter Storm Warning

Well here comes another storm and it’s time to play the guesstimate game. There has been So many so called storms this season that most of the GSB cities are below their averages. Normally I would say something like “that will be changing soon” but with all the storm busts this season I’m not going to say that.

OK, yes I am going to say it because I really, really believe in this storm and this should bring all of the Golden Snowball cities over their averages for this time in the season. Ummm, we’ll make Buffalo the exception although they may go over their average too.

If Syracuse doesn’t get at least 9 inches from this storm by Wednesday night I’m shaving the beard off, heading to the store to buy some new sandals and sunglasses and hiding in a closet until Spring weather comes which is normally sometime in mid summer 😉 In other words it’s time to BRING ON THE HEAVY SNOW or lets move on to nicer weather. Can you tell I’m totally disappointed with this winter. I do still think we have quite a bit of snow to go though before we get to what some of you call the NICE weather.

Time for the Snow Guesstimate game with the normal prizes of a pat on the back and a nice job thrown your way. Lets set the deadline to get your totals in at noon Tuesday. I know most likely we will already be getting some snow by then but hey, does it really matter 😉 If your later than that, that’s no problem either just make a comment with your totals for the 5 Golden Snowball Cities. Lets set the time table from right now until the stats come in from NOAA Thursday because lake effect most likely will be firing up also. I’m going high with this storm. Yeah i know again, nothing new for me huh and yes I have Syracuse winning this round too.

Syracuse – 17.0
Rochester – 15.0
Buffalo – 12
Albany – 9.0
Binghamton – 8.0

Take this storm seriously folks and keep an eye on your local forecast. Most importantly SNOW MEANS SLOW, drive carefully and have a great day.

Afternoon Update – I just got back from a great SU womens basketball game against Cincinnati, The Picture says it all!

Great Game Ladies and Congrats on Your Number 20 Win of the Season. GO CUSE!!!

I’ve been trying to catch one of the Syracuse women’s basketball games for over a month now and today is the day and I’m pretty excited. This is a good team and hopefully they’ll get their 20th win of the season while I’m there. To be honest I haven’t been to a women’s basketball game in a long time and I think that was at Manley. Most likely they are NCAA bound and now it’s just a matter of what seed they can win their way into. Good Luck today ladies and GO CUSE!!!

Another bust yesterday as far as the storm went for CNY and western New York. Only an inch here and there being reported as of about midnight last night. Here are the totals for yesterday and they are pitiful to say the least. Albany was the big winner with Binghamton runner up. It will be interesting to see what the final totals were for the coastal cities. I was hoping this storm would have at least put most of us over our average totals for the season but that didn’t happen.

Albany – 3.4
Binghamton – 2.6
Syracuse – 1.8
Rochester – 1.6
Buffalo – 1.5

I’m off to yell, scream, stand and cheer on the SU ladies now. Have a super weekend all!

It looks like another storm bites the dust. This season is one that I’ll remember mostly as the snow season that could have been. Could have been an awesome snow total season but the storms just never quite made it happen. At least not yet this season for the Golden Snowball award cities. The coast isn’t doing to bad, places like New York City, Mass and the rest of the NE coast should be getting some decent snow. Wisconsin is still doing pretty good and still beating Syracuse with the snow score at Madison 86.7 and Syracuse 82.1. Hopefully it will be a GSB city that topples DaCuse if it’s to happen. I”m talking national not the GSB contest itself.

The snow looked a little bit promising earlier this morning but right now it’s pretty much stopped. Binghamton and Albany may make out OK with this blast of snow and with more coming if it makes it far enough north. It’s not looking real good right now though for Buffalo, Syracuse and Rochester as far as getting a lot of snow goes. Not this time anyways. There is still a lot of Winter to go so don’t even start thinking nice weather yet. It will just be a big let down. More to come later as we see what happens with the totals for today.