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Some Information About The National Snow Contest

Posted by Patrick on February 17, 2015
Posted in: All US Snow Cities. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , .

First things first As always! I want to say Thanks You to Benjamin O. and Eileen P. for your kind donations to the site. It may sound like a repeat but I do truly appreciate you both for taking the time. Thanks Benjamin and Eileen :)

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OK, I figure it’s about time to just put out a little info about the snow contest seeing how new visitors come everyday to the site. These are a couple of early morning posts that I made in our Facebook group which by the way is open to all snow lovers and haters too. Over 200 members sharing pictures and stories and growing each day :) Click Here to Join The Facebook Group :)

This is just to give all a little info on the snow stats on the website. For 12 -13 years I’ve been doing it this way and it’s worked out good and there is NO doubt it my mind it’s the best way. All of the snow stats that I use on the snow sites I get from the National Weather Service. They get them from sources across the country, blah, blah, blah and then they post the snow statistics to their site at weather.gov.

It comes down to that I need to see something posted on the National Weather Service (NWS) site so that if a reporter, a snow plow person, or pretty much anyone gets in touch with me I have something to show them. Pretty much something to cover my butt if the snow stats are being questioned. Yes, this way I can blame it on the National Weather Service, joking.

In the case of Lowell, MA I have no reason to doubt Shawn, who is the CoOp for Lowell, Mass and does the weather measurements for them about their snow totals and other stuff. It really takes a dedicated person to do what Shawn and many others do around the clock to help all of us out. Anyways Shawn has been posting some totals that he has measured for Lowell which I have no problem with. It gives us a heads up on what’s going on there There is a Good chance that Lowell, MA according to Shawn is in 1st place right now,

BUT…. Like I have done for the last 12-13 years on the Golden Snowball site, until I see it being posted on the National Weather Service I have to go with the snow totals they are showing which at last check is 100.8. I see different numbers all day long floating around online for different cities. The National Weather Service is where we get our data from and that is what we will go by. When they report we report…

Also keep in mind that it is not that unusual for statistics which show in the Now Data section on the weather service site to be behind. This has been the case since I have been checking snow stats. Most do an update once a day though. So in other words until the NWS updates I have no choice but to stick with the snow totals I see them reporting… End of Story and They Lived Happily Ever After smile emoticon

Another post I made relating to adding cities to the contest and if you know of one that has a population of 100,000 or more and can make it into the Top 25 PLEASE feel free to share it with us ;)

This was a reply to someone asking about a couple of other cities in Massachusetts but it applies to all of the cities.

As far as I know the other cities don’t have any official snow stats. If they do I can’t find the By official I mean from the National Weather Service and stats that they consider to be official.

As far as putting other cities in the snow contest I do add several cities each season. I also remove several cities if nothing is going on snow wise there. I do check the cities that were removed from time to time. Obviously every city with a Population of 100,000 isn’t going to be listed. I’m guessing it would be over 100 and probably way more than that. I do try my best to keep it so that the top 25 cities are the snowiest but even that is hard to do. This season and Lowell, MA is a good example.

Lowell was never on the radar in the past. Because of the way this season is going someone suggested them, I researched them and they were added as they should be. Keep in mind that an update on average depending if I blog about it, do any research and so on takes 2-3 hours. This season I have made it a point to get at least two updates in. I did cut some cities a couple of weeks ago that weren’t doing much and that saved me a little bit of time. Keep in mind this is a one man show and not the Weather Channel who I’m sure has a ton of people looking up all the stuff they talk about and trust me I’m not complaining

Stephen helps out also and normally finds some fun stuff to add to the snow sites. I know he already hard at work thinking of something for next season

A big part of the FUN snow contests is that people are also suggesting a city that may have showed up on the radar and that helps me out a lot. They also make some good suggestions about a change on the site and other things. It’s the interaction with all of you snow lovers and haters that makes it fun for me. OK, the donations help too with the the time spent on the sites. I just added up the hours I put into the snow sites, mainly this one the last 4 days and it’s over 60 hours. Normally it’s around 30-40 I would say. I enjoy it though.

If anyone has a city that may be missing, mainly that would be in the Top 25 at this time in the season PLEASE feel free to let me know using the contact page above..

http://goldensnowglobe.com/current-top-10-snowiest-cities/

Have an Awesome Day Everyone :)

Three New Cities in the Top Ten and Three Out

Posted by Patrick on November 24, 2013
Posted in: All US Snow Cities. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

Warning, Online Begging Ahead ;) – OK, I hate to do this butttt…. It’s time for our annual, errr bi-annual, ummm quarterly solicitations for donations to the website. It helps to pay for some of the out of pocket costs of hosting the site not to mention the time put into keeping it updated and so on like trying to come up with my clueless posts like this. I promise anything left over will go to food and drink for myself ;) Don’t ever get me wrong. I truly enjoy keeping this site going and have as much fun as I’m sure all of you do seeing the snow stats. OK, maybe not all of you but hopefully some of you ;) Anyways if you enjoy the site and have a couple of bucks and would like to pitch in all you have to do is hit the donate button up above which will take you to my Pay Pal account to donate securely. Thanks, it really does help and it definitely is appreciated no matter how big or small. Bill Gates if you happen to stop by here feel free to drop a million in the account ;) END OF BEGGING :)

OK, on to the snow stuff and it’s been a busy, snowy weekend for some of us. 3 cities fell out of the top 10 on the snow mountain and of course 3 new cities filled their in their slot on the mountain. The 3 cities that dropped out are Salt Lake City, Utah, Denver, Colorado and Cleveland, Ohio. My guess is that a couple of those cities will be back in the top 10 before the season is over.

New into the top 10 are Erie, Pa, Rochester, NY and Syracuse, New York in which all 3 of the cities benefitted this weekend being able to tap into some decent lake effect snow. Syracuse actually tied a snow record for the date yesterday which went back to 1981 picking up 4.5 inches of new snow which is pretty good for this time in the season. I was watching the snow bands yesterday and last night and I thought maybe Erie and Rochester may have gotten a little more but either way the Golden Snow Globe contest is starting to shape up.

One of the fun things about this national snow contest is getting to meet and yes, puff smoke, poke fun and do some friendly trash talking about each others cities and their chance of winning. Yes, that is allowed here in the comment section as long as it’s all in fun. Some of our visitors from Erie seem to dish it out pretty good and the last couple of days it’s been fun going back and forth with a guy I’ll call the Dr. on twitter. All in fun and of course he suggests that we, me being from Syracuse are afraid of Erie, Pa :) I do admit that Erie’s snow stats are one of the first one I look at and keep an eye on during the winter but afraid? Ha! I told the Dr. though that you people from Erie better start making some babies because your population is getting pretty close to the cut off population of 100,000 according to the last census. Only around 1000 people are keeping you in and I would hate to have to drop Erie from the contest, one of our strongest competitors, NOT. Joking aside I think the census is every 10 years so you have plenty of time ;)

Speaking of the census and the populations of the cities, good lead in huh ;) I’ve been putting off updating the new populations since the 2010 census came out but I finally started to update the cities last night and I should have them all updated in a couple of days. OK, enough rambling. Some of us need to keep an eye on what could be a storm coming up the coast come mid week. As much as I like a good storm I’m kind of hoping this one turns out to be rain for most of us just because it’s Thanksgiving week and a lot of people will be travelling. OK, really enough rambling on now.

How it Looked with Snow at My House Last Night

Lake Effect Snowfall in Minoa, NY 11/23/13

 

HAVE a GREAT WEEK EVERYONE and a HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!