I believe in 1949 the official reporting station was moved from downtown to the Syracuse airport. The airport is about 6 or 7 miles north of the city closer to the traditional snow belt area.
As I was snowblowing yesterday I was thinking how I would grade this winter. I came to the conclusion that this has pretty much been an average winter. I might end up below average for snowfall but I’m at 70 inches right now. I’ve had 7 straight weeks of snow cover. February has averaged below normal in temperatures and there hasn’t been a torch in a couple of months. I think we tend to grade based on expectations and we have had a few letdowns this winter. But overall I would grade this winter C+/B-
OT - Today is the day the Perseverance rover lands on Mars. Landing is scheduled for 3:55 PM. The time from entry into the Martian atmosphere to touchdown is called 7 minutes of terror. Many scientists and engineers have devoted their whole careers to this mission. For more information go to space.com.
It’s a beautiful morning. I ended up with 5.1 inches of lake effect fluff on 0.14 inch of liquid. Skies cleared after the lake effect moved out and temperatures plummeted. It was -1 at 8 this morning. That’s over 8 inches of snow over the last 2 days. Once again the lake bailed me out after getting let down by the synoptic system.
I got 13.2 inches from that. I went to bed around midnight with a couple of inches down. My wife took our dog out about 7 AM and came back and told me there was a foot. She can exaggerate so I didn’t believe it until I got up to see it with my own eyes. What I’m getting at is there must have been some insane rates during the night. Maybe we can pull it off again.
The forecast for this lake effect event was for 3-6 inches. I’m at the lower end of that already with at least a,couple more inches to go. So it might not be an overachiever but the forecast will solidly verify here.
LEK can correct me but as the band organizes it “tightens” up. Also as the circulation in the band strengthens there is subsidence on the edges which squashes precipitation.