It seems every time that I’m confident about something and post about it I jinx which ever city I am blogging about. This time it was me posting about Syracuse most likely to hit the 100 inches of snow mark in the last post. Nata, didn’t happen jinxed! Syracuse needed only 1.2 inches of new snow and came up 2 tenths of an inch short to drag it on another day. Mark my word we will be over the 100 inch mark come with tomorrows update. OK, I did it again with the jinxing probably but really I’m doing it on purpose to give Rochester and Buffalo a chance to make up some ground, err snow.

I’m starting to hear that the great snow race is over and to that I say not a chance. It seems that this happens almost every year when Syracuse gets a decent lead. Is Syracuse looking pretty right now? You betcha but all it takes is a couple storms to hit the Rock, Buffalo and even Binghamton and miss Syracuse to tighten things up. It happened last season I believe in March when Rochester and Buffalo got slammed with a storm and it almost totally missed Syracuse to force the contest to go right down to the last days. So don’t be counting any of the golden snowball cities out of this contest yet. OK, you can probably cross of Albany but other than them the race is up for grabs. OK, enough about the weather.

It’s time for couch coaching which means Syracuse Orange Basketball! I haven’t got a clue as to what happened on Wednesday against the Hoyas but it was pretty pitiful. A whipping that I don’t see happening again for the rest of the season. GT shot pretty good but when you get that many easy wide open shots you should shoot good. Today is a big game just to get the confidence rolling again and I think that will happen. The defense can’t get any worse than it was against Georgetown and hopefully Andy Rautins will be back in the game today. No doubt he is a key player on the SU team along with all of the others. Sure he has been pretty hot with the 3’s lately but even if he isn’t he is still a threat and forces any of the teams we play to open up their defense to cover the long shots. Harris who to me is probably the best overall player on the team needs to do his thing, rebound and quietly rack up some points. I’m liking this team a lot other than the other night for the main fact that we are deep enough this season bench wise and for the fact that they are playing team ball. Very game that they have given the ball up for an assist they have done pretty good. I think today we will see the team I like. DaCuse Will Be In The House Today. Go Cuse!

Stay warm and drive careful. It looks like a clipper should be hitting the GSB cities sometime soon.

I know it’s starting to sound like the Marsha, Marsha, Marsha (Brady Bunch episode with Jan being jealous of Marsha) with a lot being mentioned about Syracuse, Syracuse, Syracuse here lately but lets face it, that’s the talk right now with the GSB cities. With Syracuse being just 1.2 inches shy of the 100 inch milestone this early in the season there is a good chance for that happening tonight with a little help for the LES machine. The forecasts I’m reading are anywhere from 1 – 3 to 3 – 6 inches possible.

I was reading an article by Charles McChesney who is a writer over at Syracuse.com and he mentions that only twice before have we had that much snow by this point in the season going by the National Weather Service records. In the 2000-2001 season, 110.6 inches of snow had fallen by Jan. 14. In the 1995-1996 season, there was 105.7 inches according to his article which can be read at http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf?/base/news-16/1231927178198280.xml&coll=1

In a sad news event that took place here in Syracuse, Sean Kirst has an article going that is getting a lot of responses about a terrible tragedy that happened where a 12 year old girl was killed in a sledding accident after she slid into a car parked on the side of the road. He is asking for ideas at his blog and receiving many of them, some of which are pretty good ones in hopes to stop an accident like this from happening in the future. Normally we try to keep this upbeat but IMO this is something that needs to be addressed and the chances are that these kinds of tragic accidents happen in most of the GSB cities. If you have some time visit the post and no matter what city you are from feel free to leave some feedback. Hopefully Sean will forward all of the ides to the city officials to see what can be done to make what should be winter fun for children and adults more safer. Leave your thoughts and ideas at http://www.syracuse.com/kirst/index.ssf/2009/01/the_westcott_tragedy_a_safe_pl.html Personally I like several of the ideas some which include the bails of hay and helmets along with building some kind of up slope to slow the sledders down when they reach the bottom of the hill. JMO!

Pardon my absence as of late I have been busy with work and the usual random daily bull associated with such. Hmm where to begin. Honestly I don’t know where to begin. Speaking on behalf of the Buffalo crowd this has so far been a pretty tame year. Looking at the leader board it would be hard to call this a slow year as all the cities are above last season and well above their averages to this date. I would have to say Buffalo’s blues are the result of a lack of a major lake effect storm to really pamper our total. Looking at the numbers so far we have only had three storms that dumped over 6 inches and just one “yard stick needed storm”. Don’t get me wrong, Lake Storm Hognose on 12/21 was probably one of the worst winter storms I have ever been through in terms of driving (2 hours to travel 14 miles of highway), but Lake Erie hasn’t been kind to Buffalo this year. Normally the first half of the season sees the most lake storms the benefit Buffalo in the running. This year has been an exception with areas south of Buffalo getting dumped on daily. Many locations 30 miles south of Buffalo are already over 100 inches this season. While I’ll complain this hurts Buffalo in the GSB standings I won’t complain too much as this has been a great joy to the ski resorts in WNY and directly benefits my work with increased tourism to the area ski resorts.

Anyways I’m getting off topic here. This week looks to be make or break for Buffalo’s shot at the GSB. It’s gonna be mighty cold and probably the last week of an ice free Lake Erie. If Buffalo is gonna make a run for #1 it’s got to be this week. Syracuse has built an almost sure win lead and I;m getting a little scared of another disappointing loss this season. I;m tempted to do the Buffalo snow ritual but it is usually reserved for times of green grass and extended lack of snowfall. While the lake effect has been poor this year the synoptic snowfall is still adding up to an above average season thus far for everyone. Not to mention you all know what happened after my two ritual last season, one wrong step and I asked for 80 mph winds instead of 2 feet of snow. I’m still trying to get the dance down. I have a new two step planned and I’ve calculated in for this week to try it out. Get ready Buffalo The General is getting ready to snow dance!

Also… Syracuse WILL NOT break Buffalo’s seasonal record this year. No city ever will. The 200 inch mark will be a mark none of the GSB cities ever reach for another hundred years!

Since the resurrection of the Golden Snowball contest several years back there has really only been one other time when one of the GSB cities had a shot at breaking Buffalo’s hold on a snow record. That record which still stands is the seasonal snowfall record of 199.4 inches back in the 1976 – 1977 season. That city was Syracuse a few years back in the 2003 – 2004 snow season in which they had 181.3 inches and if I remember correctly they were rocking and all of the sudden the snow just stopped.

Syracuse’s best was still off the Buffalo record by over half a foot piling up 192.1 inches in the 92 – 93 season. The question is, is this the year that Syracuse breaks the all time seasonal snow record and perhaps the first time that one of the cities in the Golden Snowball contest go over the 200 inch mark? Probably not because as soon as I type something like this I jinx the city and everything comes to a stop. Lets hope that’s not the case though 😉

What got me thinking about the 200 inch mark was Tom Hauf from the TV 5 weather in Syracuse. He sends out a daily forecast email and last night he sent one with some pretty good stats. According to Tom Hauf, he said that:

“We are 40% of the way through the accumulating snow season and if this pace continues we would end up with 213.4″ of snow making this winter Syracuse’s snowiest on record”.

Looking at the temperatures for the next several days with the highest in the 20’s there is a good chance that the snow will keep piling up for most of the GSB cities with no end in sight for the near future. Good news for snow lovers, not so good for snow haters. For the snow haters according to Tom we are 40% through the snow season so just think that the glass is almost half full. The Big question, when it’s completely full will Syracuse have the long sought after snow record of 200 inches or more?

Have a great weekend all and drive careful!

Tuesday 1:00 PM – Just a quick update as to what NOAA, the national weather service is forecasting for the Golden Snowball cities for later today through Wednesday. Here are the latest warnings and advisories:

ALBANY – WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 7 PM THIS EVENING TO 7 AM
EST THURSDAY… Read More

BINGHAMTON – WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 5 PM THIS
AFTERNOON TO 6 PM EST WEDNESDAY…Read More

BUFFALO – Winter Weather Advisory, WINTER STORM WILL BRING A WINTRY MIX TO THE REGION…Read More

ROCHESTER – WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 8 PM THIS
EVENING TO 5 PM EST WEDNESDAY…Read More

SYRACUSE – WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 5 PM THIS
AFTERNOON TO 6 PM EST WEDNESDAY…Read More

NOAA should be posting updates on the weather throughout the day as the storm gets closer and they get a better grip on where it will be hitting. Right now Albany seems to be the one to win/lose this one depending on how you look at it. Hopefully no power outages like the last storm that blew through. Drive carefully and if you See Snow – Drive Slow.

Hopefully just a good old fashion snow storm without the mix of precipitation. I was just peaking at the national radar and it looks like a storm is brewing. This could be one for the Albany area to pick up a bit of snow if it stays cold enough. The more I look at the radar though the more it seems to be lifting more toward central New York and it’s still pulling moisture from down around the Texas area. Another thing I noticed is that precipitation is also firing up in several other states and it looks like it may be drawn into this storm system so it could get really interesting come later tomorrow through Wednesday. REMEMBER THE SOURCE, ME (Clueless) so keep checking the NOAA and your local forecasts for updates on this storm. In other words check with the pros who know what their talking about 😉

Right now the Albany area, Utica and areas in eastern NY are under storm watches but I wouldn’t be surprised if a good part of New York comes under the storm watch which will/may change to warnings sometime tomorrow. These are the type of storms that I would rather have pass on by for the fact that the temps will probably start off cold and then warm up with the air coming from the south west. In other words freezing rain, sleet and a mix is most likely going to happen with this storm and hopefully it’s not too much and stays cold enough to make it more of a snow event. Even just plain Ole rain would be better than too much of the freezing rain.

Again remembering that I’m normally clueless I’m not counting Buffalo or Rochester out of this yet either. To me it looks like anything that is firing up is being drawn into this system and that’s including pretty much a lot of the states to the west of us that has something going on. Of course everything can change with the blink of an eye and it normally does with these storms. Keep an eye on your local forecasts and have a super Tuesday All!