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.

Certainly an interesting weather day in the Great Lakes region. Several things to cover. I’ll break them apart into four sections with the highlights in case you don’t feel like reading everything.

1. Lake Ontario Snows – 50 inches in 24 hours!
2. Lake Erie Snows – Ice? Not a problem for Buffalo!
3. Hurricane Michigan? – What the heck is it?!
4. Lunar Eclipse update!

1. The tug hill got a pretty good plastering of lake effect, upwards of 50 inches reported in Pulaski in about a 24 hour period! That is just crazy! But then again what else would you expect in that area this time of year? Below is a link to the regional radar from the tug hill from 11pm Tuesday through 9am Wednesday. It is just amazing to watch that band dance back and forth across Oswego County like that!

http://www.weathermatrix.net/2008/0220/rp220osw-1.mov

Here is another link to a good closeup loop of the radar from the Pulaski area from 1130pm Tuesday through 930am Wednesday. No wonder they are reporting 50 inches with the looks of that band!

http://www.weathermatrix.net/2008/0220/rp220osw-1z.mov

2. Buffalo finally got into the lake effect game a little bit this season. A bit of a disapointment that the official measurement only hit 4.2 inches, but still it helps out in catching up to Rochester. The lake effect was a bit of a suprise for us and played havoc for the local meteos in trying to forcast the lake effect comming off an 80% frozen lake. Snowfall totals picked up rather sharply just 2-3 miles south of the airport where a swath of 9-12 inches fell, about 6-8 inches of which fell in an intesne overnight burst lasting about 3 hours. Certainly not impressive for lake effect snow, but considering a single small hole in the ice managed to result in this still moderate and fairly well organized activity is interesting to note. Had the lake been ice free this would have been a perfect setup to dump a hefty amount of snow onto the Buffalo area. Things get more interesting now though hopefully I don’t throw too much technical stuff I heard in too quickly. Since the lake was ice covered and not open water, the wind flow was actaully re-vectored shifting bands from where they would normally be expected. With the SW wind flow lake effect would normally setup in the city however the ice and wind convergenge actually resulted in bands and single convective cells to setup farther southward (more what you would see with a WSW-W wind flow) and then start to dance almost unpredictabily north and then south again. It also prevents a single band from gaining a prodomitie force comming off the lake and instead results in a multi-pronged feeder band effect which several times throughout the day kept merging into a single band then dying out in favor of more multi-bands. Another factor and something I learned from the NWS forcast discussion is that even if the lake is frozen lake effect, limited in nature of course, can still form if the conditions are right. I won’t try and explain this in my own words, a copy and paste from the Buffalo forcast regarding the events off Lake Erie should sufice…

“THIS HAS BEEN A FACINATING EVENT TO WATCH UNFOLD. LAKE ERIE IS ABOUT 80 PERCENT ICE COVERED…HOWEVER IT IS STILL ABLE TO GENERATE SIGNIFICANT LAKE EFFECT SNOW. CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF…ICE COVER DOES NOT SHUT OFF LAKE EFFECT SNOW. THERE ARE TWO CONTRIBUTIONS OF HEAT FROM THE LAKE…SENSIBLE HEAT FLUX AND LATENT HEAT FLUX. ICE COVER SHUTS OFF THE LATENT HEAT FLUX AS WATER CAN NO LONGER EVAPORATE…HOWEVER THERE IS STILL SIGNIFICANT SENSIBLE HEAT FLUX THROUGH THIN ICE COVER VIA CONDUCTION. AN ARCTIC AIRMASS SUCH AS THIS CAN STILL BE MODIFIED SUFFICIENTLY TO PRODUCE A CONDITIONALLY UNSTABLE BOUNDARY LAYER AND BANDS OF LAKE EFFECT SNOW DESPITE THE ICE COVER. THE AMOUNT OF OPEN WATER ON THE LAKE IS NOT NEARLY AS RELAVENT AS THE ICE THICKNESS…WHICH UNFORTUNATELY CANNOT BE MEASURED REMOTELY.”

So I guess even with a frozen Lake Erie Buffalo still has a running chance in the contest! As with the Lake Ontario band here is a radar loop from the Buffalo area. It highlights the 2nd band that effected the area later in the evening from around midnight through 9am.

http://www.weathermatrix.net/2008/0220/rp220buf-1.mov

3. Well I thought my learning would have ended finding out decent lake effect could orgainze itself on a frozen lake, then this morning I was check radars around the Great Lakes region and I spotted this on the Grand Rapids, MI radar loop.

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d32/smadsen8486/2.gif

The strangest looking band of lake effect I have ever seen, looks like a mini hurricane doesnt it?! So I shoot off some message board questions to explain what I was seeing. It turned out to be a “meso-low” or small scale area of low pressure that can give lake effect band those visible traits on the radar. From what I was told they are not common occurances, yet they are not overally rare either. A local meteo in Buffalo told me that they tend to form with light winds in strong artic air masses. A few people in the Michigan area also commented that these meso-lows can often bring some intense squall conditions. If summerof41 from the forum is on maybe he can tell us how the conditions where this morning as the meso-low squall looks to have came inland right around his neck of the woods. Here is an extended 4 and 1/2 hour radar loop of the band where you can really see the circulation on the leading edge of the band and even circulating convection around the center.

http://www.weathermatrix.net/2008/0220/rp220grr1.mov

While I thought this was something rare to see it didn’t take me long to hear from that another meso-low formed over Lake Huron not to long after the first one on Lake Michigan. Here is a close up of a much more defeined “eye” if you can call it that on what was dupped Hurricane Huron.

http://icons-pe.wunderground.com/data/wximagenew/m/MrSea/132.jpg?r=1203532488

Lastly here is a loop of the satellite images that shows both of these meso-lows together, you do have to look really close to spot them! The one on Lake Michigan formed first and then a frame or two after you can spot the one on Huron briefly before it comes inland in Ontario.

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d32/smadsen8486/sat_ir_mw_loop-12.gif?t=1203573791

4. The Lunar Eclipse had a perfct skies here in the Buffalo area this evening. Certainly a fun sight to watch the moon being darkened and then turning red for about an hour and then just as quick going back to a white disc in the night sky. If anyone got any good pictures be sure to comment with a link or drop by the forum and share them with us! I was out snapping for a while but my camera probably didnt get anything good, I’ll have to check them out tomorrow.

Well if you’ve made it all the way to the bottom of this post, thanks for being a die-hard reader! No snow dance and 4 big weather related happenings all in one day, go figure!