Archives

All posts for the month May, 2010

Some Syracuse Snow Shots

Posted by GSG Fantasy Snowfall on May 16, 2010
Posted in: Snow Pictures and Gallery. Tagged: , .

With Pat’s decision to unofficially officially call the contest over and Syracuse the inaugural champion, I thought it might be fun to post some of my pictures from the season.

If you recall, the early part of the season, Syracuse was lagging behind in the standings. The picture below, taken on New Year’s Eve, tells that story quite well.
December Snow
Indeed, there is some snow, but not as much as we’re used to for that time of year.

Let’s fast forward the look back to February. For those of you who don’t know, I work part time on late nights, often getting home well after 3 AM. For the most part, it’s not too bad traveling. The worst part in the winter is typically getting home as more often than not, the roads (including the highways) are not in the best shape in the very early morning hours. In late February, Syracuse was stuck with a record breaking snowfall, and I could not get to work. I tried to, but after about 3 miles, the snow proved to be too much, and I conceded defeat and retreated home. The next few photos show the conditions at about the time I would have gotten home, had I somehow managed to arrive at work.
February Snow 1February Snow 2
Yeah, that would not have been fun to experience.

That day, and the day after, most (if not all) the area schools were closed. I don’t remember a time in the past decade when the schools were shut down for 2 straight days. The only other event that I can recall is the Blizzard of ’93, and that is going back a ways. A couple of pictures show the morning scene (when the busses would have likely arrived).
February Snow 3February Snow 4
I wouldn’t want the busses out in that either, so let the kids (and adults) enjoy the snow for the day.

From one extreme to the other, April started out with record breaking heat. This led to another occurrence I don’t remember too often in the Syraucse area…cherry blossoms in mid-April.
Mid April Cherry Blossoms
The end of Winter? Hardly.

As it turned out, Syracuse Winter had one last gasp on Mother’s Day weekend. It wasn’t much, but the early morning hours featured some snow flakes. Unfortunately, I was unable to get pictures of the event.

Have a great week everyone! By the way, if you have some snow pictures, feel free to send us some. Uh…the pictures, not the snow. :) Details are available here.

Syracuse, New York Snowiest City in US Population 100,000 Plus

Posted by Patrick on May 15, 2010
Posted in: All US Snow Cities, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , .

It’s officially unofficial that the snowiest city in the United States is Syracuse, NY.  Lets just hope I didn’t blow it this time.  Remember the Washington, DC Big Oooops :)   Anyways I’ve looked and looked, talked and talked to several people and everything is pointing to Syracuse being the King of the snow mountain for the 2009 – 2010 snow season.  The stats below are as of earlier today which is May 15th and this date seems to be a good cutoff date for the National Snow Contest.  A couple of the bigger Colorado cities did just get some snow added to their totals but it isn’t enough to knock off Da Cuse.  If anyone out there has any info on a snowier big city than Syracuse, pop 100,000 or more please let us know by emailing us at comments@goldensnowglobe.com .

I did talk to a couple of people from a couple of stations for NOAA, the national weather service and they both seemed to also think the stats should be right.  That said there is always that chance that we have missed a city this being the first annual Golden Snow Globe contest and kind of a test run for the first season.  Below you can see what we came up with for the top 10 snowiest BIG cities.  There is no doubt that it was pretty time consuming but the fun comments from all of you and just the competition of all of the cities competing for bragging rights made it worthwhile.   Being the first season of the contest all I can say is I hope I got it right with calling is Syracuse, NY. 

Steven, our Golden Snow Cast master did an awesome job with his forecasts.  I think he came out at being something like 90 + percent right which is pretty good.  Hey he is looking for a job in meteorology, forecasting, mapping, burger flipping or whatever you have for him.  OK, I’m kidding about the burger flipping kind of jobs but he is a graduate of State College and he knows his stuff.  Thanks Steven for all the time and hard work you put into the site this season.

More to come on how the snow season went and look for some improvements come next season including getting a lot of the populations up to date and hopefully some cool contests and prizes for our visitors.  There were a lot of good suggestions from quite a few people and we will be adding some of them next season.  Thanks again to all of you and to those of you who made this a fun contest by posting and emailing.

Top 10 Snowiest Cities in the United States Last Updated 5/15/2010

 

 US States and Cities

City Population

2009 – 2010
Snowfall Totals

Normal
Snowfall to Date
1-36 Syracuse, New York

141,683

106.3

111.9
2-17 Erie, Pa

102,612

91.4

91.7
3-2 Lakewood, Colorado

140,671

90.6

???
4-10 Rochester, New York

211,091

90.2

100.3
5-1 Fort Collins, Colorado

128,026

88.7

???
6-6 Philadelphia, Pa

1,463,281

78.7

19.3
7-45 Pittsburgh, Pa

316,718

77.4

40.6
8-7 Baltimore, Maryland

635,815

77.0

18.2
9-5 Anchorage, Alaska

275,043

74.6

69.5
10-14 Buffalo, New York

279,745

74.1

97.0

We’ll try to get a summary posted on how the cities started, finished and how some of the cities like Baltimore, Washington, DC, Pitt and others came out of nowhere to land in the top 10 at certain times during the contest.

Have a Great Weekend All!

Still Working the Phones of NOAA

Posted by Patrick on May 11, 2010
Posted in: All US Snow Cities, Colorado Snow Info. Tagged: , , , .

The snow stats have been updated as of April 30th! Read below about calling it a wrap!

I’m still trying to make sure we call this contest right and have had a couple of conversations with some people from Noaa at a couple different weather stations.  From what I gathered is that if the city isn’t coming up with snow stats on NOAA the chances are there isn’t a weather station for that city and whatever comes in is probably from snow spotters.  I’ve said it sever time how much I respect what snow spotters do and the time they put into it but we are going to go with cities that have NOAA weather stations.

I talked with Chad Gimmestad from the Colorado NOAA station and got some really good input from him.  Thanks Chad for taking the time :)   I’ve come up with a date that should be safe enough to call the contest or hopefully safe enough to anyways.  We wanted to go with May 1st which is when we call the smaller snow contest at goldensnoball.com but seeing how the national snow contest involves many more cities we have decided to extend it just a little longer.  Colorado and a couple of other states are pretty much the last to receive snowfall so we decided to base it on that.  Snow is in the forecast for some of the Colorado cities depending on the temps for the next day or two and it could turn out to be a significant snow event.  With that said, the date is picked and it is soon so stay tuned is all I can say while I keep working the phones to make sure we get it right.  Of course there is always a chance we don’t and look like the normal fools we really are trying to have a fun contest.

Cheers and Have a great week all.

Syracuse is Looking Like The National Snow Champ Butttt

Posted by Patrick on May 1, 2010
Posted in: All US Snow Cities. Tagged: , , , , .

I still need to get some stats for a few cities that have me concerned. Mainly some of the Colorado cities not listed here because I haven’t been able to find snow stats on them plus a couple of others. In other words I’m being a sissy man in calling Syracuse the winner just yet. I will get a hold of everyone I need to and make an announcement next week. Yeah I know I’m a wimp but I would rather get it right for the first annual national snow contest for cities with a population of 100,000 or more. Just a bit longer.

Cheers, Patrick