Golden Snowball

Binghamton is Showing a Trace of Snow

Posted by The Snowman on October 1, 2014
Posted in: Golden Snowball. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

I suppose it’s too nice too soon and too nice out to say “Let The Snow Games Begin” but I figured it was time to at least make a post about the new snow season. I was a little surprised to see that Binghamton is showing a trace of snow already especially being the southern most city in the Golden Snowball snow contest.

I also had a major computer crash so I kind of wanted to take a test ride on the computer I am using as a back up which dates back to the beginning of time. Everything is taking about 5 times longer to do but it will have to do for now. I was fortunate that I did a full backup on the other computer a few months back so I was able to retrieve most of the stuff I needed. I should probably say surprisingly I did a full backup not too long ago because that doesn’t happen too often. All of the logins and passwords to sites that I need is a whole other story 🙁

I was reading an article by Glenn Coin over at Syracuse.com which inspired me to check on the stats today to see what was going on. It was mainly about Syracuse and the first snowfall of the season. Glenn mentioned that October 1st was the earliest day of Fall when syracuse has received more than just a trace of snowfall which was back in 1946. It was a little later for Buffalo and Rochester. You can check Glenn Coin’s article about early snowfall here!

Any predictions on which city will win the Golden Snowball contest this season? I thought for sure Buffalo was going to pull it off last season.  One more thing is that I did do an update on the National Snow Contest Website Golden Snow Globe and a few cities are also showing just a trace of snow.  No measurable snow as of the last update though.

OK, back to the nice October weather we are all having 😉

Tom Arma Costumes On Sale Cheap

Posted by The Snowman on July 29, 2014
Posted in: Golden Snowball, Shopping. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

I figured I would pass this deal on the Tom Arma costumes for toddlers and infants along. The main reason being I have never seen Tom Arma costumes on sale like this and so cheap. They normally sell for around 59.00 and right now they are only 29.99 which is kind of crazy. I saw this when I was updating my toodlers Halloween costume site earlier and was pretty shocked how cheap the Arma costumes are.

Toddler Tom Arma costumes for infants, baby

I don’t know if it’s a mistake or not but normally these all sell out every Halloween season. Maybe the costume store is just trying to make room buy selling Tom Arma costumes really cheap to bring in new stuff. Whatever the reason is if you have an infant, baby or toddlers this really is a great deal on Tom Arma Signature Halloween Costumes for the little ones.

Tom Arma Halloween Costumes

Tom Arma Halloween costumes for toddlers

Tom Arma Costumes


Click Here for Tom Arma Costumes

I took a look and they still have a lot left including the Tom Arma monkey costume, Tom Arma bear costume, the butterfly, panda, koala, gorilla and most of the others. Even though it’s this early before the Halloween season the different sizes are starting to sell out fast. Like I mentioned, I don’t know if this was a mistake on the price or just some sort of sale going on for Tom Arma costumes for toddlers and infants but I wouldn’t wait too long. They are really cute costumes for you kids and just as good they look pretty warm for us in the Syracuse, Buffalo, Rochester and northeast which is nice for our normally cold Halloween nights we have here.

No I am not trying to jump past summer into Halloween but this is honestly the cheapest I have ever seen these Arma costumes go for. Enjoy the rest of the summer all 😉

It’s a Wrap, Syracuse The 2013-2014 Golden Snowball Champs

Posted by The Snowman on May 1, 2014
Posted in: Golden Snowball, golden snowball contest. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , .

According to section 13, rule #6 – the snow contest will end on the last day of April it’s time to yell out those famous words, IT’S A WRAP.  Congratulations Syracuse on winning the 2013 – 2014 Golden Snowball Contest.  WTG Syracuse! 🙂

I have to give Kudos to Buffalo who came up just a little over a couple of inches short this season.  This seasons snow contest was the closest it’s been since the resurrection of the Golden Snowball contest.  The next closest snow race was back in the 2007 – 2008 when Syracuse bested Rochester by just 3.1 inches of snow.

This seasons victory gives Syracuse it’s second consecutive win since being topped by Rochester in the 2011 – 2012 snow season.  I was thinking that Buffalo was going to slip ahead a few times at the end but they just couldn’t pull a couple of more inches from Father Winter.  Buffalo’s last couple of seasons have been pretty wimpy as far as snow goes but this season was their highest snow total since the 2001 – 2002 season.

OK, as for section 13, rule #6, Nah, doesn’t exist although I kind of wish it did.  Several years back we agreed that the contest would be called on May 1st no matter how close the race is.  You can read my thoughts on that in a post below.  I did call two of the stations with the National Weather Service to get a little bit of input last night.  Both agreed that the chances are pretty slim that Buffalo will get more than a couple of inches this late in the year.  Buffalo has only had 4 seasons out of something like the past 130 years where they received over 2 inches in May.  One of the guys said it was probably less that a 5% chance of it happening and the last time was in 1989.  Of course now that I said that we all know it will happen.  Let’s hope not and let’s hope we all move into the nice warm, sunny weather pattern for the summer.

Thanks to all of you who visited the GSB site this season and a Big Thanks to those of you who took the time to drop some of your hard earned money by leaving a donation to the site.  I truly appreciate it 😉  A big Thanks also to the media, Sean and the others who cover the snow contest each season to make it grow every year.

You may want to check out the National Snow Contest at www.goldensnowglobe.com

A Big Congrats to Syracuse, Winner of the 2013 – 2014 Golden Snowball Trophy!  Have an awesome spring and summer everyone.

Buffalo Snows It’s Not Over Yet

Posted by The Snowman on April 23, 2014
Posted in: Golden Snowball. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

I have to wonder if the folks in Buffalo can handle a few more inches of snow this season in order to claim the Golden Snowball Award?  As of today there is only 2.1 inches of snow separating Syracuse and Buffalo.

Time is running out but we are still stuck in this pattern that keeps bring cold air into the cities.  A quick blast of snow over Buffalo and they could dethrone last seasons snow champ Syracuse.  Do you want it Buffalo or is it enough already?

There has only been a couple of times since the contest was resurrected that it’s been this close at the end of the season and I DON’T like it.  It makes it too hard to call the contest come the 1st of May.  Several years back I went into negotiations with one of the city reps at the time.  They wanted it called April 1st and I said that it was too early to call it because we still get snow.  We agreed to May 1st but what happens if a city, let’s say Buffalo gets a few more inches May 5th and goes ahead of Syracuse?  Who was really the snowiest city in the contest?  Any thoughts?

Have a Great Day All 🙂

Can Buffalo Snow Past Syracuse For a Late Upset

Posted by The Snowman on April 15, 2014
Posted in: Golden Snowball. Tagged: , , , , , , .

There hasn’t been much to post about lately with the weather being the way it’s been buttttt… That is about to change and has already changed in Buffalo. I just saw a picture that was posted showing it is snowing pretty good in Buffalo right now. Buffalo is less than 3 inches away from Syracuse, the current King of The Snow Hill. Only 2.8 inches separates them right now.  Both cities are expecting snow today which is hard to believe after the warm weekend we just had.

Can Buffalo overtake Syracuse and finally get a win under their snow belt? Right now it’s just rain in the Syracuse area but that is expected to change over to wet snow in a couple of hours. I’ll have to look back but I think if Buffalo can get ahead of Syracuse that this would be the latest comeback since the Golden Snowball contest was started up again. Don’t quote me on that though. Stay tuned and look for an update later on when some snow stats start coming out.

Have an Awesome Day All 🙂

How The Golden Snowball Contest Started

Posted by The Snowman on April 4, 2014
Posted in: Golden Snowball. Tagged: , , , , , , .

First Off as always a big Thank You to Alison S. for your donation to the website. They help out a Whole lot with the cost and time spent on the site. I truly appreciate it Alison and Thanks again 🙂 Like you mentioned, the site is here to have some fun and to help pass the season by.
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Keep in mind that this is about how the website got started and when I got involved in OUR contest and also about how the whole contest started to begin with.  The part about how the contest started is by Sean Kirst and his article below which is awesome at explaining it. That article also started the resurrection of the snow contest.

I was reminiscing this week while answering emails and comments about when I first started the website site and how much it has grown since then.  I was wondering how long I have been keeping the snow stats, how long I have been the scorekeeper for OUR Golden Snowball contest and how long the site has been around.  I just took a look as to when I started the website up.  I bought the domain name goldensnowball.com on January 23rd, 2003 at exactly at 6:32:59 am.  Most likely that isn’t EST because I doubt I would have been up that early 😉  So as of Jan. 23rd this year it would have been 11 years since the website started and since I got involved in the snow contest.

All I can say is it has been a blast the whole time but with that said let’s give credit where credit is due which is with Syracuse’s own beloved columnist for the Post Standard and Syracuse.com, Sean Kirst.  More on Sean in a bit though because right now it’s about me, me, me, Marsha, Marsha, Marsha 🙂   Back in 2003 I heard something mentioned on one of the local news stations about a NY snow contest from the past that may be started up again.  So I decided to go online and check it out.  I wanted to see what it was all about and I came across an article that Sean had written about the contest which I am going to post below because it covers the contest from the beginning to where we are today.  It’s a must read to learn all about the Golden Snowball contest.

The Golden Snowball contest goes way back to the late 1970’s but it stalled out for a bit.  No, not because we didn’t get any snow those seasons but most likely because some of the National Weather Service stations were closed down.  You’ll read all about it when you read Sean’s article.  OK, it looks like we are back to Sean Kirst again 😉  He wrote an article about the old contest back in 2001 which is the first one I read back in 2003.  I looked around to see if there was a site for the contest and there wasn’t so I thought Hey, why not give it a shot and see where it goes. I did think Hey, really I did 🙂

So I started the website up and the first season would have been half way through the 2002 – 2003 snow season.  The site had something like 300 visitors.  The next season the snow site got about 5000 visits and it seemed to double each season for awhile.  This season the Golden Snowball site should have over a quarter of a million visits to the site and more than half a million page views.  It’s nice to see that every season more and more people become interested in the snow contest.  Like I said, it’s been a blast the whole time. So much fun that I decided to start up the Snowiest Big City in the United States snow contest which you can check out at www.goldensnowglobe.com

OK, back to Sean 🙂 (man did I bounce around)Below is an Awesome link to the first article about the contest by Sean Kirst that explains just about everything there is to know about the Golden Snowball contest from the beginning to where it is today. http://www.syracuse.com/kirst/index.ssf/2014/01/the_real_snow_kings_syracuse_a.html

Have a Great Weekend All 🙂