What is the Golden Snow Globe Contest your probably asking yourself. Beats me! OK, I do know and I’m going to try and explain it in the briefest way possible. Many moons and snowfalls ago some meteorologists in Rochester started thinking how it would be fun to see which of the bigger cities in Upstate – Central New York gets the most snow each year. They started up a little contest between some of the cities in NY and called it the Golden Snowball Award.
From all the research I came to the conclusion that the cities in the snow contest were Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany and Binghamton. The contest started sometime in the late 1970′s and ended in the mid 1990′s when the Rochester station closed up shop. After several years went by the contest was mentioned again and I just happen to read about it. Hence goldensnowball.com was born to start up the resurrection of the contest once again. You can read more about that contest at http://goldensnowball.com/about-the-contest.htm . So much for brief so far huh?
Year after year since I started keeping the stats for the GSB contest I’ve been asked by many people and visitors to the site why I don’t do a global or national snow contest to see which big city (pop 100,000) gets the most snow each season. I’ve always like the idea of a national snow contest and even global. The biggest problem is the time it will be taking each day to gather all the snow stats for all of the cities and whether I could handle it. Well I guess it’s time to say GAME ON! Just give me a bit of time before the site really comes together and to find all of the city stats I need to find. So far I have about 40 hours into the new Golden Snow Globe contest and not a whole lot to show for it as you can see 
Here are the plans and most likely they will be changing more than a newborn baby’s diaper. All cities in the US with a population over 100,000 are in it. Obviously we’re not going to pay a whole lot of attention to states like Florida and the likes. Nothing against you Floridians I just don’t see ya’s winning. We will be spending most of our time trying to gather the stats for the cities with a pop of 100,000 that normally receive quite a bit of snow. Cities like Denver, Erie, PA, Syracuse, Buffalo New York and the likes. Don’t worry though because if your city happens to have some kind of freak snow season your in it no matter what.
We still have some rules to set for the new snowiest city in the United States and your input isn’t only welcome but we encourage it. I think one of the hardest rules to set is the time frame. I don’t think the start date will be a problem it’s the end date that may be. The start date will be the first snowfall of the season. If it happens in July so be it. The problem with the end date is that some of the cities go on and on. So do we decide on the contest being the snowiest city up until a certain date or the snowiest city until it stops snowing. Any thoughts? That’s just one thing to think about. Another will be that all of the snow stats should be official. To me the only official snow stats are from NOAA, the national weather service. Could be a problem if NOAA doesn’t have a station for certain cities.
OK, enough said and I’m sure this contest will all come together and it should be a lot of fun competing for the snowiest city in the US title. More to come and Let The Games Begin! Click Here for the current Snowiest US city Results!
Can you please tell me where GSG gets its snowfall data? Is there a standard for all cities, such as the snowfall at the local airport, or perhaps official data provided by the National Weather Service? Randy
Northern Worcester County here, we are getting 6 more inches as I type.
I’ve heard about Erie, Ontario lake effects…but we earned #1 last year and look like a cinch for this year since the lakes are now frozen. My double wide drive is down to one lane…I hope we can wrap this up soon.
My guess is that Wachusett Mountain ski are will be open until May.
Not Ontario, Syracuse has snow in forecast next five days. So you will be in our rearveiw mirror soon.
If I had to pick or bet the farm on the most lake affect snowfall a small city of lacona ny. will most likely get the most inches with adams creaping up on this city you’re talking after strong plows walking around with walls of snow neatly on either side of you being a polarbear at heart im a snow lover naturelly.
Also when it comes to wetern new york and there lake effect snows lake Ontario gets the deepest lake effect snows especially around watertown and the small city of adams ny. seems to get hammered there fight in the middle of the lake effect snow belt! by far beating out erie pa.
Adams and Watertown are not in WNY, they are in C-NNY.
But the altime monster snowfall highwsy is of course Thompson pass from hwy 4 to hwy 1 takes the cake with the hwy closed off and on in alaskas winter has an annual snowfall of about 700 inches a year big rigs often have to be towed up the pass even chained up do to the treachery of this highway and of course the deep snows its by far the winner!
The million dollar highway between leadville and Interstate 70 is supposed to be the snowiest with a pass reaching 11,518ft.respectively in February has walls on each side of some of the road as high as 15 ft from the snow plows you feel like you’re driving in a tunnel with no sealing! an a average snowfall of around almost 400 inches annually wow!
What about twin briges ca. Or oswego ny. Ir adams ny.which allways had the most snow
To the also-rans cities in the golden snow globe national snow contest…here in Erie, Pennsylvania we are getting whollopped today. I’m guessing about a foot already and it isn’t close to stopping. Whoo-whoo-whoo!!! Catch us if you can.
I absolutely, love this site. I don’t know what it is, but if you live in a snowy area, you just love to brag about it. Even people who claim to hate snow, still brag about it.
This site is what I was looking for – I’m so glad I found it.
Tom
Big Rapids, MI
(1hr North of Grand Rapids)
Congratulations Erie, PA
We will gladly relinquish the honor to Rochester or any other city.
whoooot! whoooot! erie pa rocks! you keep up the good work and we will keep shoveling!
Lol chris to the “you keep up the good work and we will keep shoveling!” It’s going to be close
How about doing it by county instead of city? The reason is that we all know that the city has more than 100,000 people around, same here for Monroe (Rochester), and Erie (Buffalo). I don’t think it will impact the numbers too much. Also, to quality, the county must have a city that has a population >50k.
Just a thought
Bruce Hartley
Cool site….Keep up the good work…I’m a weather stats nut so i love this site.
Manchester NH has a population over 100,000 and snow banks up past my waist. We might not beat Syracuse but I figure we’ve got a shot at beating out Boston.
I grew up in Syracuse, NY. I now live in Texas. I do not miss the snow!!!! I can get enough snow by watching it on tv.
York, PA has a population of 40k
york, pa is at 80 “
Very nice site! I am old enough to remember the contest as I have been a life-long resident of Rochester. Thank you for starting this up again as I have some friends in Wisconsin who constantly think they have it bad when the temps get low – but their snowfall is pitiful compared to ours. What I found interesting was that when I went there in 2007 and 2008, they were having a record season and that they “thought” they had it bad at 60 inches a year. I LAUGHED when I told them the snow in our area is DOUBLE during a typical season and just to even dish it out to them more, I went outside without a shirt at like -5 and told them I didn’t know what their issue was about the cold!
Please keep this site going, I really enjoy it and have bookmarked it.