Almanac says cold, snow and clouds make for tough sledding from October to April
Pedestrian move through snow near the Cathedral in downtown Syracuse in this photo taken in February.Syracuse, NY -- The Farmers' Almanac piled it on Syracuse, naming it the worst winter city in America.
Syracuse worsted Duluth, Minn.; Casper, Wyo.; Cleveland, Ohio; and Detroit, Mich., according to the almanac, because “winter starts very early and lasts late.”
That opinion may sound a little out-of-date to Central New Yorkers who recall that last year National Weather Service instruments at Syracuse Hancock International Airport did not measure a 1-inch snowfall from Feb. 23 until Dec. 9, giving the region nine months without an inch or more of snow.
And the almanac’s observation that Syracuse once again took the Golden Snowball Award for the most snow all season didn’t note that until mid-February, Baltimore had received more snow than the Salt City.
Temperatures in Syracuse, the almanac noted, can drop as low as 25 degrees below zero. Negative 26 degrees, actually. That’s the lowest the mercury has ever fallen at the airport. That happened back on Feb. 18, 1979, and one other time: Jan. 26, 1966.
The coldest it reached last winter was 8 degrees below zero on Jan. 30. In fact, according to National Weather Service data, it hasn’t been 20 degrees below zero or lower in Syracuse for more than 14 years. It hit 24 below zero on Jan. 6, 1996.
Duluth, which the almanac ranked the second worst winter city, is regularly colder. National Weather Service records show that every record cold for Duluth in January is 30 below zero or colder, except for Jan. 4. The record cold for Duluth for that date is minus-29 degrees, set in 1884.
Winter can be snowy, but not always. Tim Hemingway, dressed as the Abomindable Snowman to promote a restaurant on North Salina Street March 10. Warm weather and a lack of snow - except a bit of slush along the street's curbs - left him looking out of place.The almanac noted that along with snow and cold weather, winter months in Central New York are “typically gloomy, with Syracuse receiving only one third of the sunshine possible, because of considerable cloud cover.”
“That sounds like us,” said Pat DeCoursey, the East Syracuse resident who tracks the Golden Snowball competition at his Web site, www.goldensnowball.blogspot.com.
“I would change that ‘worst,’” he said, “to the best winter city.”
Contact Charles McChesney at cmcchesney@syracuse.com.