5:35PM UPDATE –

The stats were just posted by NOAA. The new stats are updated up to 4 – 5 pm for the citys. See the chart above! Syracuse’s totals are a little disappointing but I’m not greedy. Ok, so I am but at least Syracuse has melted Buffalo’s lead to just over a foot of snow now. Believe it or not the total snowfall for today for Syracuse sets a date record going back to 1959 which stood at 8.3 inches. So far today DaCuse reports in at 8.6 inches. Below are the totals so far for today’s snow.

Syracuse – 8.6
Rochester – 1.1
Buffalo – 0.5
Albany – 0.4
Binghamton – 0.3

With it being so long since our last snowfall that little kid feeling hit again last night and real early this morning. This had the same feeling as the first snowfall of the season. I looked out the window right before I headed upstairs to bed last night and it was just starting to come down. Then for whatever reason I woke up at around 5:30 this morning and looked out the window from my bed and saw that beautiful shine of white gold on the roof and with the help of a distant light I could see that it was still coming down pretty good here in the Syracuse area. Knowing there wasn’t a chance of falling right back to sleep I headed to the bay window in the living room to get a better look.

Yeah I know it’s not like we have never seen snow around here. But this is really only the second decent snowfall for us all season and the first one was way back in December. While looking out the window I noticed that my kids never put the trash out last night. *%$%$@%*64 I said to myself as I threw on some clothes and a jacket and headed out the door to put the trash out. Of course it probably could of waited till later in the morning but I think it was an excuse to get out there and feel it. To feel the lake effect snow whipping all around the neighborhood. This time real snow too, not the fake cotton stuff that’s now burried under the real snow.

Being a night owl normally and only seeing 5:30 – 6:00 am when I work late on the computer it was weird to see what goes on. A great sight to see was all the plow trucks flying up and down the street with the flashing lights as they headed down different streets to plow some of the driveways in the neighborhood. I’m sure by the end of our typical snow season it’s probably tough even for them to get up and head out in the cold to plow peoples driveways. My bet is the excitement was there for them this morning also. Sure they probably are looking forward to the money they make but my bet is it was still fun to get out and play in it this morning.

Anyways, I shoveled a path down the driveway and put the trash out, minus the cotton snow of course 😉 I figured while I am out there I might as well get a jump on the driveway and started to shovel it. After about five minutes of shoveling I hear the sound of another shovel scraping the driveway across the street. For me to be out there before 6am and shoveling is one thing, but for there to be 2 of us right across the street from each other that early was just plain crazy. Of course the only crazy part was that I was out there. I think it’s normal for my neighbors to be up and about that early. As I get near the bottom of the driveway I yell silently (is that possible) to Julie across the street. “Morning Julie, Ya Gotta Love it Huh, Finally Some Snow” in which she replies something like “Uh, No Not Really, Are Ya Crazy”. I just took it in stride and continued to shoveling figuring that Julie is not a morning person and it was better to leave it at that for now. Most likely when we shovel later she will be liking it more, shoveling it the second time in a day.

More on the neighborhood. I look at another neighbors, Frank and Donna’s house, next door to Julie’s and scratch my head. His driveway was already shoveled. Here it is not even 6:00 am yet and Frank beat both Julie and myself to the snow. So here I am thinking I am going to be the first one in my neighborhood to play in the snow and I was wrong. I looked at my next door neighbor and Cheryl’s lights were on. Now I start thinking to myself that I don’t think this is a normal everyday occurrence for all the neighborhood to be up this early. I think this is the kind of effect that a good blast of snowfall has on us big kids 😉

Enjoy the snow all and look for an update once the totals come in later in the day and evening.

Was it the snow dance or perhaps trying reverse psychology on mother nature? Maybe it was the threat of NYCO to put the Snow God back in the closet or maybe it was just our weather finally doing what it is suppose to do this time of year. SNOW! Whatever the reason sfter one of the lamest, most pitiful snow seasons so far that I can remember, snow is finaly in the air, and on the ground. Up to the north snow is on the ground so fire up the sleds while it’s there. Some unofficial reports are coming in the forum that the Tug Hill area is showing anywheres from 12 – 18 inches and the snow continues to fall. I’m still waiting for Tug Hill Tina to give us a report in the forum as to how much snow she has on the ground there. ZR800 posted in the Golden Snowball forum the following from NOAA:

Other reports so far from the Buff NWS…
Colden 10″
Warsaw 11″
N Oseola 9″
Portagville 6″

None of the GSB city’s are reporting snow from over night. Come tomorrow morning that will all change. NOAA just updated it’s current warnings at http://www.weather.gov/view/prodsByState.php?state=ny&prodtype=warnings

Right now they are predicting 10 – 16 inches in persistant snow areas meaning if the lake effect bands tend to sit in spots or keep devoloping in certain spots, look out. My guess is that all the city’s will see something by morning and I think out of the 5 golden snowball cities, Syracuse is going to win this round with Rochester coming in second.

On January 7th at approximately 10:34 pm this seasons first snow dance was performed. Now all we can do is sit and wait to see what happens. Having a 90% or so success rate in past years I’m expecting that percentage to go up. As I mentioned in our forum I get a little nervous each and every time I perform the dance. Nothing could be worse than me over doing it, doing it wrong or God forbid doing the wrong dance and waking up and seeing on the news that a freak Tidal Wave hit the North East or something.

Right now it is windy and snow is in the forecast. Mostly for the Oswego and Tug Hill area. The dance won’t take credit unless the totals are way over what is predicted seeing how it was already in the forecast before the dance was done. That said, the dance was done to try and bring a sustained cold air mass to the GSB cities and also the surrounding area so that the snowmobilers and skiers can try and salvage the time that is left. Also as pointed out by TioTonto at Syracuse.com I have been leaving out the ice fishing people. The shores haven’t even started to freeze over on the lakes and I am sure they are itching to get out there on the ice.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know if ice fishing is a separate permit? Are you allowed to fish from the shores or from a boat if there isn’t any ice on the lake?

Something scary happened while performing the snow dance last night. I almost thought I was having a hallucination. While performing the ritual I looked around and saw what appeared to be tiny little spots of snow about the size of a small snowball blowing around the yard and the neighborhood. I’m good at what I do but not that good. After a minute or so of thinking I was that good one of the white snowball sized pieces blew against me. As I picked it up I realized what it was. My sisters stopped by this weekend to help take the Christmas decorations down. One of them threw away what my son puts around our Nativity scene every year. Cotton, and lots of it. It turns out that the wind blew over the trash can and all the cotton, tons of it had escaped. So to my neighbors, my bad and if you see some fake snow blowing around my apologies. I tried to gather it up but with the wind the way it was it just wasn’t gonna happen. Just pretend it’s real snow and think of it as more of a late Christmas present from the snowman or better yet, the idiot that lives at the top of the street. Have a Great Week All!

I hate snow. I’m hoping that the weather stays just like it is. Please Mother Nature, don’t let it snow.

OK, before you all pound me with emails calling me a traitor hold off on them. I’m trying reverse psychology on Mother Nature to see if that will work seeing how nothing else has so far. I know it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature but I’ll have to take that chance. In reality I’m sitting around like the rest of you, make that some of you, waiting for this winter to begin.

I just read a couple of articles looking at our seasons weather with 2 different views. Sean Kirst’s article in the Post Standard today talks about how the nice/crappy weather makes it easier on certain people. Read the article here!

Hart Seely also has an article in the Post Standard but with a different look. Hart looks at the way it is effecting the Tug Hill Plateau and other areas that counts on the business from the snowmobilers. Read the article Here!

It will be snowing sometime soon. How do I know you might ask? Because this weekend I will be doing my stupid but normally effective snow dance which so far has worked about 90% of the time. I can’t give the exact time or place because this is a dance that the local, make that world media would just love to get on film. Ok maybe not the world media but I’m sure a neighbor would like to get it on film and post it on youtube.com to show what an idiot the Snowman really is. Enough said! Shine up the skis, tune up the sleds, the snow dance is coming this weekend. Have a Great weekend all!

Normally at the beginning of the season I spend hours trying to find websites or pages that are no longer where they use to be. NOAA is pretty good about moving pages around that have all the stats I use but after awhile searching or with the help of Daver from the forum who works for NOAA I am able to find them.

One of my favorite sites for updated stats from the past and present has always been http://mep1.phy.syr.edu/~rsholmes/snow.html which I believe was kept up by Rich Holmes who I believe is a professor at SU from what my research in the past has shown. Well this snow season the site is no where to be found and man do I miss it. That said I am on a quest to track Rich down and to see if he moved it some place else or if he gave up doing it all together. I’m hoping it was the first of the two, that it was just moved. If you look back the last couple of years you will see that I mentioned the site several times.

Most likely Rich has a great program that he ran that would compare all the data and list it on his site. Great comparisons such as the snowiest months, daily comparisons by seasons and so on. Anyways, I’ve found a couple of contacts for him so wish me luck on either finding out if he changed the location on the web or if he stopped keeping them, talking him into doing it again. The stats really kept things interesting here. More to come as the mystery of the missing website unfolds.

Maybe I better start paying attention to what ever it is that Al Gore has been talking about for the last several years. The skies are blue and the sun is shining. It wasn’t this nice all summer long for crying out loud and here it is January 3rd and the temperature is hovering close to 50 degrees outside. Blame it on El Nino, Global warming or whatever, this just isn’t right. How are we suppose to have our Indian summer or our January thaw when there isn’t anything to thaw out. The lakes haven’t even begun to freeze over yet. It’s so nice even the fish are wearing sun glasses.