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All posts for the month December, 2009

Send Us Your Snow Pictures

Posted by Patrick on December 11, 2009
Posted in: Snow Pictures and Gallery, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , .

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Have some great pictures of the winter weather in your neck of the woods? Send them to us and we’ll post them on here. Just let us know who you are, when and where the picture was taken from.

We’ll be starting up a picture gallery in the near future and there is nothing cooler than pictures of people having a blast in the snow. Anything to do with your snowfall works for us here at Golden Snow Globe. Send your pictures preferably no larger than 800 x 600 to pictures@goldensnowglobe.com . We can resize them for you if you can’t.

Below is a picture from Alisha from Canastota, NY. Alisha wrote:

“I truly believe winter is a great time of year for people of ALL ages. I am turning 21 years old next week, and I STILL enjoy building snowmen!! I would LOVE to see this put on the news as a shout out for all of central new york of these jolly snowmen wishing everyone who drives by a happy holidays.”

Snowmen Sent By Alisha Ladd of Canastota, NY

Thanks for the picture Alisha and it looks like fun!

The Top 10 Snowiest Cities Updated

Posted by Patrick on December 11, 2009
Posted in: All US Snow Cities. Tagged: , , , .

Well kind of updated that is. I spent a good part of the day and night trying to find the snow stats for the rest of the cities I didn’t look up yet. Fort Collins, Co and Lakewood, Colorado are definitely going to be the 2 cities to try and push of the snow mountain. Denver has quite a lead but not big enough in my opinion to last too long in the number 3 spot unless they can keep adding.

There are probably about 15 cities after the top three that have finally started to turn on their snow makers and with that last storm that covered a good part of the US some of the cities I didn’t expect to make the jump so fast. Yeah, get use to the run on sentences here :) Des Moines, Iowa and Grand Rapids, Michigan sledded into 4th and 5th place. Thank God for the Weather Channel because they always are in the thick of the snow where ever it’s falling and at least gives me a clue as to where to start. They had some good shots Des Moines when they had some blizzard warnings up along with several other spots.

One of the cool things with this wacky weather we’ve been having is that from the stats I have so far 7 of the cities in the top 10 are from all different states. No doubt this contest will be spread out across the US. Look for as frequent of updates as possible because things are changing rapidly as far as the weather goes.

Have a Super Day Everyone!

Golden SnowCast Forecast 3

Posted by GSG Fantasy Snowfall on December 9, 2009
Posted in: The Golden SnowCast. Tagged: , , , , .

Unfortunately, this forecast is a bit late. I generally want to get forecasts up for 2 to 3 days in advance. I was ready to do one on Monday for Wednesday and Thursday, but all the good stuff was on Tuesday. So, a decision had to be made…do I make a forecast for 1 day in advance with the knowledge of there being all sorts of winter weather advisories, which would make the forecasts a bit easier (at least in theory), or do I wait a little bit and find something to forecast for the weekend? I chose the second option.

For the New York State forecast, it’s back to just the Golden Snowball cities.

At least half of the Golden Snowball cities will have wind gusts of over 30 mph on Friday.

Looks to be a breezy day on Friday. As a note, there is currently a high wind warning out for a portion of New York State, but that expires on Thursday evening (at least as of the time of this forecast). So I expect breezy conditions to continue into Friday but the wind should not be as strong as on Thursday. For my forecast to be correct, 3 or more of the Golden Snowball cities must have stronger than 30 mph wind gusts.

For the World forecast, it’s a trip up north to Canada. We’re putting the Globe into the Golden Snow Globe, and World into the World forecast all in one step.

At least 1 of the big Ontario cities will have their high temperature 5 degrees or more below average on Friday or Saturday.

This is basically the inverse of my first World forecast. It looks to be a chilly day in Ontario, even for their standards. There are three Ontario metropolitan areas with populations over 500,000: Toronto, Ottawa and Hamilton. If one or more of those has a high temperature that is at least 5 degrees below average on Friday or Saturday, the forecast will be correct. Since the forecast is outside the US borders, verification will come from The Weather Channel.

Have a great weekend all!

Snow…in Arizona?!

Posted by GSG Fantasy Snowfall on December 8, 2009
Posted in: All US Snow Cities. Tagged: , , .

Yes, there was snow in Arizona, and I do mean the state. To be fair, the bulk of the storm was in the northern portion of the state, where they do see snow, just not like this. The National Weather Service is reporting 20.1 inches fell in Flagstaff yesterday, shattering the day’s previous record of 5 inches set in 1956. As it turns out, Flagstaff’s average snowfall for this point into the season is 20.2 inches. Flagstaff’s total for the season is now 24 inches. For those of you wondering, Flagstaff’s population is estimated as 60,000, well below the 100,000 threshold for the Golden Snow Globe contest.

One area that typically does not see snow is the southern part of Arizona. However, when I got home from work, I noticed that Tuscon (or at least the county Tuscon is in, Pima County) was under a winter storm warning. It appears that most of the snow was only on the mountain tops and not any official reporting stations. Apparently the big news for the area was wind and rain. Tuscon’s Airport recorded a gust of over 40 MPH. Some rain gauges measured over an inch of rain in a 24 hour period. Impressive for any area, but especially for a region that’s known for dry conditions. Source of this data is KOLD in Tuscon, which was found through a Google News search.

Golden SnowCast Forecast 2 Results

Posted by GSG Fantasy Snowfall on December 7, 2009
Posted in: The Golden SnowCast. Tagged: , , , , .

Better late than never, here are the results to my 2nd set of forecasts.

For the New York State forecast, I predicted that at least one of the New York City reporting stations would have more precipitation than at least one of the Golden Snowball cities on either Wednesday or Thursday. The chart below compares the NYC reporting station with the most precipitation to the GSB city with the least precipitation. All stats come from the National Weather Service.

New York State Precipitation
Day Most Precipitation in NYC Least Precipitation among GSB cities
Days when NYC had more precipitation: 2
Wednesday 0.45 (Central Park) 0.07 (Binghamton)
Thursday 0.73 (Central Park) 0.04 (Syracuse)

That forecast proved to be correct. As it turned out, several GSB cities had less precipitation than the NYC reporting stations on both days. Only Albany (0.80 Thursday) and Buffalo (0.52 Wednesday) had more than Central Park. I find it interesting that Central Park had the most precipitation in the NYC area on Wednesday and Thursday.

For the World forecast, the prediction was that at least one of the four major cities in Michigan (Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids and Lansing) would receive an inch or more of snow. The table below shows the National Weather Service’s reports for each city.

Michigan Snowfall
Day Detroit Flint Grand Rapids Lansing
Cities with an inch of snow or more: 1
Wednesday None None None None
Thursday None 0.3 2.4 0.2

That forecast also turned out to be true. I was a little nervous about it after Wednesday’s no show of snow. But Thursday saved the forecast as Grand Rapids met the target, receiving over 2 inches of snow.

Golden SnowCast Results
Region Record
Overall Percentage: 75%
NYS 1-1
World 2-0
Overall 3-1

Both forecasts held up, and as a result, my percentage has increased to 75%. It’s still very early in the season, though. In fact, Calendar Winter does not begin for another few weeks. When we get into the bulk of Winter, the Golden SnowCast may actually be able to have forecasts with more snow in them. Should be fun to see how the forecasts turn out when that time comes.

Have a great week everyone!

Temperature Data and Winter Outlook video

Posted by GSG Fantasy Snowfall on December 4, 2009
Posted in: All US Snow Cities. Tagged: , , , .

Golden SnowCast Forecast 2 results to come later, but I saw this yesterday and figured it would be worth showing.

Some of the Penn State Meteorology Department staff do a show called Weather World. This is the same show that gave me the idea to do the Golden SnowCast. One segment is called WxYz (WeatherWhys) with Dr. Jon Nese. On December 2nd, Nese took a look at temperature data from October and November, and noted some interesting findings. He also then compared data from El Nino winters to the Climate Prediction Center’s winter outlook. To see the segment, go to Weather World on the Web and click on the WxYz graphic. In case the WxYz segment mentioned is replaced with a new one between now and whenever you are reading this, Nese keeps an archive of the year’s WxYz segments at this page and look for the December 2nd edition when it is posted. I’m not sure if he takes down previous year’s segments, or if 2009 is simply the first year of WxYz, so I suggest watching it soon.

For those of you wondering, the Sure Bets segment is the inspiration for the Golden SnowCast.

Have a great weekend everyone!