You didn’t believe I’d just reveal the top 10 that way, did you? Big surprise for me among the 40 listed is Cheyenne, WY almost cracking the top 10, coming in 13th. A little humorous to me is Cold Bay Alaska, population 74, has 74 inches, one inch per person. Probably won’t see that again any time soon. Now, here are the top 10:

10. Ely, NV: 91.1
Ely’s population is 4,041 and just snuck in ahead of Burlington, VT and has the most snow among the Nevada cities.

9. Erie, PA: 91.4
Erie, population 103,717, the 2nd place city among those with population over 100,000 comes in 9th among all NWS sites.

8. Lander, WY: 102.4
Lander, population 6,867, has the most snow among Wyoming sites.

7. Elkins, WV: 104.7
Elkins, population 7,032, is 7th overall, but is 2nd among West Virginia stations.

6. Syracuse, NY: 106.1
Syracuse, with a population of 147,036, having the most snow among cities with population over 100,000, is 6th place.

5. Yakutat, AK: 107.1
Yakutat, population 680, is the top city among those with population under 1,000.

4. Beckley, WV: 132.9
Beckley’s population is 17,254 and has the most snow among West Virginia sites.

3. Flagstaff, AZ: 141.8
As mentioned in the previous post, Flagstaff, with population 52,894 is not the top city, but does have the most among cities with a population of 50,000 or more.

2. Marquette, MI: 145.6
Marquette, population 19,661, has the most snow among those with a population of 5,000 or more and is in 2nd place overall.

1. Valdez, AK: 293.3
Valdez, population 4,036, with almost 300 inches of snow, claims the top spot among all NWS sites.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this countdown for the season among all NWS sites. Remember, all snowfall data is from early April, and population statistics are from the most recent estimates available from city-data.com.

Have a great week everyone!

Albany, having the least snow among the Golden Snowball cities, is in a tie for 82nd place in the country. It’s also a bit interesting to see the differences among cities with multiple reporting stations. For example, New York City’s Central Park station is in 62nd place, while La Guardia in 77th and JFK was on the previous post at 101. Grand Forks’ North Dakota University station is in 76th but the airport was 134th. Washington, DC’s Reagan is 51st, with Dulles yet to be revealed. Just goes to show how much difference a few miles can make. That is the beauty, and the beast, of the system.

In the final update, the top 50 will be shown. Who is #1? It’s not Syracuse, NY…or Flagstaff, AZ.

Once again, the surprises to me are the cities in Alaska and Colorado being so low. Other than that, this table of 50 cities has more northern representation than the previous two posts, which was bound to happen at some point.

The next update will showcase the cities in the 51-100 range. At least one of them is a Golden Snowball city.

Have a great weekend everyone!

I did not expect cities in Colorado or Montana to be this far down on the list, and yet, here they are at 154, 155 and 173. There is another Alaska city fairly down the rankings as well, Fairbanks in 156. Other than that, this seems to be as expected, most of the cities in this ranking area are in the southern portion of the country.

The next SnowDown update will feature rankings 101-150. More northern cities will be shown, including one from New York State.

There are a few surprises to this list. First off, only one official reporting station in California reported measurable snowfall for the season (as of early April): Campo with 1 inch. I know some parts of California can get a lot of snowfall, but apparently none of them are official measurements. Second, I did not expect to see any Alaska cities to be in the 100s, let alone the 200s. However, Annette is there, ranked 202.

Congrats to New Orleans on being the city with the least measurable snowfall for the season!

Next SnowDown update will feature cities ranked 151-200. Colorado is known for snow, and yet, one of their cities fell in that range, as well as another Alaskan city.

First, all snowfall stats are from the National Weather Service. If a city does not have NWS stats, I did not include them on the list. Second, to make the list, a city must have measurable snowfall shown. That is anything 0.1 or more for the season. If a city has missing data, trace amounts, or no snowfall, they were not included in the list. Third, population does not matter. If a site meets the first two criteria, it’s going to be listed, whether it has a population of 100 or 100,000 or 100,000,000. Population data is taken for the city listed on the NWS site. If it is a multiple city area (such as Scranton/Wilkes Barre), the first name listed counts. This is just for quick statistics purposes and has no barring on the results. Finally, a city that has multiple reporting stations will have all sites included. For example, I consider New York City to have 3 sites: Central Park, JFK and La Guardia airports. All three will count separately as New York (Central Park), New York (JFK) and New York (La Guardia) with population data for New York City.

All snowfall statistics were taken the first week of April. With over 250 cities making the list, and having my course work start up again soon, I would rather not go through all cities another round, especially since most of the cities have not seen substantial snowfall since the start of the month.

In the next few days, I will begin revealing the results of the 2009-10 Golden SnowDown. I couldn’t come up with a better name, it’s a snowfall showdown, so put it together and that’s what you get. If you have a better name for it, then you’re just more creative than I am.

Why the name golden snow globe? Perhaps down the road we can make this contest global. I looked into it and I honestly don’t see it happening for the reason of trying to get official and honest stats from some countries. I do see us bringing Canada into the contest hopefully as soon as next season though which will just add to the fun in my opinion. They have a few cities that are right up there with the best of us when it comes to snow.

What’s the Golden Snow Globe about in a sentence? Fun, bragging rights as the 2009 – 20010 snowiest US city and some kind of trophy, prize or whatever we come up with for the winning city at the end of the snow season.

Some of you may have heard of the Golden Snowball Contest and most likely if you don’t live in New York State you haven’t heard of it.  It’s a contest between 5 cities in NY that compete for a beautiful trophy and more importantly bragging rights to being the snowiest city in upstate – central NY.  The 5 cities include Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse.  To give you an idea about that contest check out goldensnowball.com.

Well consider that contest and multiply it by lots. Lots of cities in lots of different states across the US. After doing a little research a few of the states that look to have some cities that will definitely make this a pretty competitive snow contest include Colorado, Pennsylvania, the Great State of New York (Yeah, I’m a little bias toward NY) Alaska, Michigan and several others.

Beer (Bud Please) with us as we gather and post the snow stats in the next couple of days here at goldensnowglobe . com. Will mistakes be made? You betcha and that’s a promise and probably lots of them so feel free if you see something to let us know about it. More importantly your suggestions and feedback aren’t only welcome here we encourage it

As for the rules we like to use official stats and those stats come from NOAA, the national weather service. Population must be over 100,000 and we can all discuss when we want the end date to be.

I’m also hoping to get some guest posters here whether it’s a local meteorologist from your city, journalists, the abominable snowman or who ever we can trick into posting. It should be an interesting and most likely problem filled fun first year.

That’s about all for now but stay tuned because things should be getting updated here constantly in the next couple of days. If I were a betting man, which I am by the way (Shhhh) my bet would be going on a city in Colorado that’s most likely leading the snow contest right now.

Hey,Have a Super Day All!