Buffalo drifts ahead in snowfall showdown
Rochester a bit off typical pace but still in the hunt
A pre-weekend warm-up means a stop in the snow, but the break in the action is typically brief in upstate New York, with more wintry precipitation expected as early as Sunday.
One way to turn the snowy wintertime doldrums into a bit of fun is the Golden Snowball, which is awarded to the upstate New York city with the most snowfall each winter between Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse.
Golden Snowball 2024 standings
The most recent winner was Buffalo, which took home the prize with 133 inches of snow in the 2022-23 season. As of Monday, the Queen City is again leading the way with 51.2 inches of snow. A snowy January – 43.2 inches -has pushed Buffalo toward its typical year-to-date snowfall.
The Rochester area has seen 32.9 inches of snow this season, which trails the normal year-to-date snowfall. This puts them ahead of perennial favorite Syracuse, with 26 inches, and Binghamton, 28.4 inches. Albany trails the rest of the competitors with just 16.6 inches.
Last year, Rochester finished dead last among the five participating cities with only 50.4 inches of snowfall. Rochester last won the Golden Snowball for the winter of 2011-12, with 59.9 inches. Syracuse has won seven of the last 10 awards.
The Golden Snowball started as a competition between National Weather Service offices in each of the participating cities following the Great Lakes Blizzard of 1977. When the Weather Service office in Rochester closed in the ’90s, the contest ended, but was restarted in the early 2000s through the efforts of Patrick DeCoursey.
There is also the Golden Snow Globe national snow contest, with the snowiest city in the entire United States with a population of 100,000 or more. Buffalo topped the charts in the nationwide contest last winter, too. As of Jan. 22, Anchorage, Alaska, is the top snowfall city in the country, with 87.7 inches, more than double its average snowfall by Jan. 17. Rochester is fifth in the nation, with Syracuse rounding out the Top 10. Binghamton falls below the population threshold for the Golden Snow Globe or would tie with sixthplace Des Moines, Iowa.
What is the Rochester forecast?
Rochester will experience high temperatures in the 40s through Saturday, with lows above freezing. The warmest day is forecast to be Friday, at 46 degrees; the normal high temperature for Jan. 26 is 33 degrees.
There is a chance of rain beginning Thursday, predominantly after 5 p.m., and continuing through Friday, mainly before 11 a.m. Saturday will be cloudy and cooling, with a chance of snow returning to the forecast on Sunday.