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!

Golden SnowCast Forecast 2

Posted by GSG Fantasy Snowfall on November 30, 2009
Posted in: The Golden SnowCast. Tagged: , , , , .

This forecast is up a little bit earlier than I anticipated. That’s mainly due to interesting weather happening before the weekend and I want to get these forecasts up a few days in advance of the events.

For the New York State forecast, we’re getting New York City into the mix with the Golden Snowball cities.

At least one Golden Snowball city will receive less precipitation than one of the New York City reporting stations on either Wednesday or Thursday.

Wednesday and Thursday look to be soggy for the state, but especially for NYC. For those of you wondering, there are three NYC reporting stations that will be used in verifying the forecast: Central Park, LaGuardia Airport and JFK Airport. If any one of them receive more precipitation than any one of the GSB cities, on either Wednesday or Thursday, this forecast will be correct.

For the world forecast, I’m looking at Michigan for some snow.

At least one of Michigan’s major cities will have an inch or more of snowfall on Wednesday or Thursday.

Looks to be an interesting part of the week for the Michigan area, though I imagine an inch of snow is nothing to be too worked up about in that region. There are four major reporting areas that will be used for this forecast: Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids and Lansing. For my forecast to be correct, there must be at least an inch of snow measured at one ore more of the four sites.

As said earlier today, have a great week all!

Golden SnowCast Forecast 1 Results

Posted by GSG Fantasy Snowfall on November 30, 2009
Posted in: The Golden SnowCast. Tagged: , , , , , , .

For the New York State forecast, I predicted that none of the Golden Snowball cities would have measurable snowfall on any day between Friday and Sunday. The table below shows how much snow each city had as reported by the National Weather Service.

New York State Snowfall
Day Albany Binghamton Buffalo Rochester Syracuse
Cities with no measurable snow each day: 4
Friday Trace 0.8 None None Trace
Saturday None Trace None None None
Sunday None None None None None

That forecast proved to be wrong. It was Binghamton that spoiled the forecast, and it didn’t take very long for that to happen. The other cities did their part. Close, but not close enough.

For the World pick, I said that at least 2 of the 4 major cities in Idaho, Montana and Utah would be within 5 degrees of their average highs and lows on Friday. The table below shows what the results are as reported by the National Weather Service and the Brigham Young University weather station.

Mountain West Friday Temperatures
City Average High/Low Recorded High/Low
Cities within 5 degrees of average highs and lows: 2
Billings, MT 38/22 52/35
Boise, ID 42/29 39/30
Provo, UT 43/27 63/26
Salt Lake City, UT 43/27 39/23

That forecast turned out to be correct, barely. Interesting to note that the two that were not within 5 degrees were well above their average highs with Billings almost 15 over and Provo 20 above average.

As a side note, I try to use National Weather Service data when available. In the case of Provo, I used The Weather Channel to find the average temperatures and the BYU station for the actual temperatures as there is not an official NWS station in Provo. In some cases (usually with unofficial stations such as BYU’s), a “day” can have different start times. For example, the BYU page lists the day as 24 hours between 5pm local time while stats kept at Penn State’s weather station for State College, PA (also unofficial) are 24 hours between 7am EST/8am EDT. NWS information is updated a few times a day, with data available sometime after midnight for the previous day. It’s this data that I’ll typically use when verifying the accuracy of my forecasts if available for the given city.

Golden SnowCast Results
Region Record
Overall Percentage: 50%
NYS 0-1
World 1-0
Overall 1-1

So, I’m struggling out of the gate. To gain some perspective on this, I’d need to get the next 8 straight forecasts correct to get to my goal of 90%. Only 2 predictions are done at a time though, so when the next batch of forecasts come out, I’ll be shooting to reach 75% overall. I expect to have that forecast done by midweek.

Have a great week everyone.

Golden SnowCast Forecast 1

Posted by GSG Fantasy Snowfall on November 25, 2009
Posted in: The Golden SnowCast. Tagged: , , , , , , .

Some people dream of a white Christmas, but for me, it just wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t have a white Thanksgiving weekend. So, for the New York State forecast, we’re looking into snow for the weekend.

None of the five Golden Snowball Cities will receive measurable snowfall on any day from Friday through Sunday.

There will be snow, however it does not appear to be much in the way of precipitation. Also, some of the precip will be rain, which means less snow falling. So, for my forecast to be correct, all five of Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse must not gain a tenth of an inch or more on any day this weekend.

For the World forecast, we’re moving to the Mountain West, in particular, Idaho, Montana and Utah, for some temperature forecasts.

At least half of the major cities in Idaho, Montana and Utah will be within 5 degrees of normal highs and lows on Friday.

Looks to be an about average day on Friday for that region. For those wondering, I am using Boise, ID, Billings, MT and Salt Lake City and Provo, UT as the major cities in the area. For my forecast to be right, at least 2 of them must be within 5 degrees of both their average high and low temperatures.

Happy Thanksgiving all!

Colorado Still Kicking Butt with Total Snowfall

Posted by Patrick on November 23, 2009
Posted in: Colorado Snow Info, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , .

First off if anyone knows where I can find stats for some of the US cities I would appreciate the help. Although there are still a lot of cities I need to find I’m mostly interested in finding the snow stats for this season for those in Colorado preferably from the national weather service site but we may have to compromise a bit for now. The cities I need are Aurora, Thornton, Westminster and Arvada. Chances are pretty good that they may be right up there in the stats. More shout outs for help will be coming soon I’m sure :)

OK, the stats have been updated and the cities from Colorado have quite the jump on the rest of us. So far from the snow stats that we have (we’re still looking) Lakewood, Fort Collins and Denver are piling on the snow compared to the rest of us. Lakewood, Co is at the top of the snow mountain right now with 35.5 inches of snow with Denver right behind them at 32.6 inches and Fort Collins rounding off the top 3 snowiest cities with 26.5 inches.

The big question is can they hold on to that big of a lead throughout the snowy season? Personally I don’t think they can but a 3 foot lead this early in the season should have all the other cities nervous especially those of us from the North East who think automatically think we have the bragging rights for snowiest big cities in the United States with a population of 100,00 or more. Cities like Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse.

Syracuse is suppose to be one of the top snowiest cities in the US and to only have 0.6 inches of snow this late in November is pretty unusual. As a matter of fact according to Sean Kirst who is a journalist for the Post Standard in Syracuse and at Syracuse.com they are on the verge of setting a new record for snowfall. Unfortunately it’s for the most days in a row without at least an inch or more of snow. That’s not what I call a good start to the first annual snowiest city in the US contest which is now called the Golden Snow Globe. You can read the article HERE!

Buffalo, the city known for their awesome snow storms has yet to get past the trace mark. Just a couple of years ago they had that freak storm in October which dropped a couple of feet of snow on their great city. Rochester is another city that most likely will be in the top 10 sooner or later with an average snowfall total of about 100 inches. Don’t count Buffalo or Rochester out of winning the award until that last snowflake is counted. The chances are that within the next week or two the lake effect snow machines will start cranking up and cranking out the snow for Syracuse, Buffalo and Rochester.

All I can say is keep it going and WTG to the cities in Colorado. I think you are going to need every inch you can get right now before the other snowy US cities start trying to dethrone you as king by pushing you down the snow mountain.

Have a Super Day All ;)

Introduction to The Golden SnowCast

Posted by GSG Fantasy Snowfall on November 20, 2009
Posted in: The Golden SnowCast. Tagged: , , .

I thought it would be fun to have some forecasts on here throughout the season.  This should be something different than most forecasts done elsewhere.  I say “most” because the idea came from a segment of a show some of the Penn State Department of Meteorology staff does.  First off, there will not be any waffle words like “chance” or “possibility” and such.  So these forecasts are going to have some certainty to them.  In doing so, the forecasts will tend to be more of general statements rather than an attempt at pinpoint accuracy. Also, I’m going to keep track of how the forecasts are going.  The goal is 90% accuracy, but we’ll see what happens.  There will be 2 forecasts: one for somewhere in New York State and one for somewhere else in the world. I’ll try to have forecasts at least every other week during the winter season, with the first forecast to be for the Thanksgiving weekend, provided there are events to forecast.

Have a great weekend everyone.

The Golden Snow Globe Contest – Snowiest City in the United States

Posted by Patrick on November 13, 2009
Posted in: All US Snow Cities. Tagged: , , .

Which big city with a population of 100,000 or more will be the snowiest city in the United States this snow season?  Only time and a lot of snow will tell.  Welcome to the new Golden Snow Globe website. Consider this the Grand opening of the site even though it isn’t even close to being ready.  Things that will be updated on here soon will be which city is leading so far, the top ten snowiest cities to date and more. The reason for opening up shop early is to get some suggestions and feedback from visitors here. Maybe lay down some rules that haven’t been set in stone, err snow yet and get this bad boy rolling.

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!