Golden Snowball

As we all know, it has been a very quiet month snow-wise this December. In fact, the city with the most snow this month is Binghamton, with 6.7 inches. The least snowiest December among the five cities is Albany, with less than an inch. This got us thinking…what are the top 5 least snowy Decembers for each of the GSB cities? After a little bit of research, here they are!

Albany:
Trace (1928 and 1895)
0.3 (2006)
0.5 (1931)
0.6 (1943)

Binghamton:
4.0 (1994)
4.2 (2006)
4.7 (1957)
5.4 (1965)
6.2 (1998)

Buffalo:
1.1 (1891 and 1889)
1.7 (1943)
2.9 (1931)
3.4 (1896)

Rochester:
2.6 (1939 and 1928)
4.1 (1932)
4.3 (1936)
4.7 (1891)

Syracuse:
2.7 (1931)
2.8 (1947)
3.4 (1932)
5.2 (1924)
5.9 (1994)

As some of our readers probably know, when I did the seasonal snow rankings last Winter, I used the 1951-52 season as a starting point. That was to sort of make it an even playing field as that was the first season available with data for all five GSB cities. One of the reasons was to compare rankings by city (as an example: City A is having their 15th snowiest season, while City B is at their 26th). It wouldn’t be “fair” if one city’s records went back 50 years while another one went back 100 years or more. This time around, I decided to go with all available seasons. Since I’m not comparing each other’s rankings (that might come later) with each other, I believed this to be the way to go. As such, I should mention that the period of record can vary greatly city to city. Albany (1874), Buffalo (1871) and Rochester (1871) have a much earlier starting point than Binghamton (1951) and, to a lesser extent, Syracuse (1902).

By the way, with 4.2 inches of snow so far, Rochester could crack the top 5 of their least snowiest seasons! A half an inch or less is what it’ll take these last few days of the month.

I think it’s time to say enough already or make that not enough already.  With Syracuse being in last place and all of the other cities with the exception of Albany having a pitiful snow season it was time.  Time to do a snow dance and this may have been the earliest in the season that it has been preformed.

The snow dance took place last evening and as always it was done in a remote location under strict secrecy.  Now it’s a matter of wait and see what happens 🙂  With the lack of snowfall this season and the weather patterns that CNY has been on I’m thinking that if nothings changed in the next 72 hours or so it probably didn’t work.  Normally I do a snow dance just for Syracuse to try and stay ahead of the competition, Buffalo, Rochester and Binghamton.  Albany who 🙂  This one was done for all of the cities so it may take a little longer to see some of that fluffy white stuff start to fall.  Let’s hope not though.

I’m still hoping to here from Ellen to see if the Snow God has been taken out of hybernation.  Hopefully the Snow God can get something going.  If it works maybe I should start charging the ski slopes, snow mobiles, sledders and other snow enthusiasts a little kick back to do the dance.  It might even be time to turn the Pajamas inside out and do a few more snowfall rituals to get this season going.  Lets just keep our fingers crossed and hope the first snow dance works.

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Have a Super week all 😉

While I was dropping the ball here it looks like snow was dropping in Binghamton.  I just updated the stats and they have pushed Albany down the snow hill and are now on top.  Buffalo and Rochester made a move yesterday slipping past Syracuse who is now at the bottom of the hill.  WTG Binghamton!!!

Just about this time last season take a day or two was when it was non stop snow for some of the Golden Snowball cities.  Syracuse was starting to run away with the contest picking up 4 feet in a matter of days while Rochester, Binghamton and Buffalo were also picking up some decent snowfall.  Close to a couple of feet of snow.

Compared to last season, this season has been like a vacation in Florida for the big 3 cities.  Normally I would say like a vacation in Albany but they are ahead of the big 3 still and held the lead this season for quite awhile.  Now lets see how long Binghamton can stay on the top.  It should be interesting to see if Binghamton, Buffalo, Albany and The Rock have enough snowballs to throw to keep Syracuse at the bottom of the snow hill.

That all said there is only one thing left to do and it will be done sometime today or tonight.  It’s time for the Syracuse snow dance 🙂  I’m just not feeling that Christmas spirit yet and I think it’s to do with the lack of snow 🙁  Let’s see if a snow dance can maybe bring some of that white gold that’s falling up north down this way a bit.  If anyone talks to NYCO, remind her to put the Snow God out if she hasn’t yet.  It looks like Syracuse is going to have to pull out all the strings to get something going here.

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Have a GREAT weekend All 😉

 

 

Binghamton has started up the golden snowball contest this season.  Way to go Bingo!!!  Albany kicked the snowfall season off last year but it wasn’t until around the 8th – 9th of November last season. 

Binghamton also started this years NY snow contest off in style.  They set a date record with 1.9 inches of snow reported so far today.  Nice!

So far Albany isn’t reporting for this evening so I’m not sure what’s going on there.  I have talked to a couple of people that live around the area and earlier said some snow was coming down.  Let the CNY Snow Game Begin 🙂

I’m way behind in posting and one of the things I wanted to post about was what Jim Teske from channel 9 weather here in Syracuse sent me. Some pretty good snow stats as to what the chances are of a city winning the golden snowball award going into January with the lead. In other words what are the chances of a big come back right now for Rochester, Buffalo or Binghamton. He didn’t factor in Albany and as we all know here, who cares. No offence to Albany of course 😉

Jim went back 20 years and gathered all of the stats for the GSB cities and came up with some great results below. Jim also has a post for discussion going on at the TV 9 Weather section.

Click Image To See Stats


To sum it up the odds are against a city coming back with a city having a big lead at the end of December. That said this season has been somewhat odd considering 2 of the cities, Syracuse and Rochester have already broken a monthly snowfall record in December so who knows. Here is a little of what Jim wrote to me/us.

Jim Teske – I got to thinking whether the city in the lead at the first of the year ends up winning the award most of the time. I looked back at the last 20 years and I found that 12 out of the 20 times that was the case.

I have the lead (or deficit) the ultimate winner had at that point in the season. For the 8 times that someone made a ‘comeback’ the ground they had to make up was not that large except for 2006-07 when Syracuse was behind by 20″ Right now Syracuse is up by about 26″ Also 2001-02 sticks out when Buffalo had their week long lake effect event around Christmas. They were up by 75″!

Click here to read more at the TV 9, Syracuse blog!
Thanks Jim, I really appreciate you sharing your info and great stats with us :))

Update 9:45 PM:

Just a heads up that we have had another lead change but I’ll wait until tomorrow to change the stats. As of around 4:pm Buffalo grabbed the lead from Rochester and Syracuse moved into second, Bingo jumped to 3rd place and the Rock sits in 4th now. At least 3 of the cities, maybe 4 may set a snow record for the date. It will be interesting to see who comes out on top come morning. I’m off to shovel.

Current Seasons Totals as of 4 – 5 PM

Buffalo – 17.0
Syracuse – 14.4
Binghamton – 13.7
Rochester – 13.4
Albany – Enough said 🙂

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The snow totals are in from yesterday and Rochester is the King of the Snow Hill. They slid past Buffalo by only .05 but enough to get them on top and they are the first GSB city to reach the one foot of snow mark.. It will be interesting to see if they hold the lead through the next update because some of the overnight snowfall hasn’t been reported yet.

Yesterday’s Snow Stats According to NOAA:

Rochester – 8.3
Syracuse – 6.8
Binghamton – 6.2
Buffalo – .7
Albany – Trace

Here in the Syracuse area I just shoveled about 5 inches of settled snow. We’ll see what NOAA comes out with later in the day or evening for the GSB cities. So far there have been 3 Leaders this season. Albany started the season out, Buffalo grabbed the lead from them and now Rochester takes over as the possible snow champion. I think it’s going to be a fun and exciting season and I’ll be posting the Golden Snowball winter outlook forecast sometime in the near future. I know everyone just can’t wait for that post, Not.

Have a great day all!