What Does November's Snow Tell Us....(11-27-12)
In spite of the cold and, at times, snowy weather over the past few days, it looks like November 2012 in Syracuse is going to continue a recent trend of slow starts to our winter weather. If you’ve read my last few posts here in the blogs section and on our Facebook page you know our prospects for cold and snow the first few days of December don’t look that great. That, of course, means skiers and snowmobilers are getting a bit nervous. Is this a trend that is likely to hold up through the entire winter? Lets see what past winters can tell us.One thing that definitely shows in our past numbers is that if you get off to a snowy November, you are going to have a snowy winter as a whole. The lowest seasonal snow total here in Syracuse after we had a November with at least 20” of snow (7 different years) is 123” back in the winter of 1973-74 (20.6”/123.2”). The other six winters that fit that criteria ended up with more snow.However, if you try to make a case that much less snow in November than normal means we are definitely headed toward a low seasonal snowfall, things aren’t as clear cut. Here is a list of winters over the last 20 years that had less than 5” of snow in November and what the seasonal total for those winters ended up as. Notice, if we end up with less than 5” of snow this November that will be the 4th year in a row that that has happened, the first time since the mid 1960s.
| Winter | November Snow | Seasonal Snow |
| 1994-95 | 3.5” | 62.2” |
| 1998-99 | 0 | 98.3” |
| 1999-00 | 3.8” | 85.8” |
| 2001-02 | .5” | 59.4” |
| 2004-05 | 2.6” | 137.6” |
| 2006-07 | .1” | 140.2” |
| 2009-10 | .3” | 106.1” |
| 2010-11 | .8” | 179.0” |
| 2011-12 | .6” | 50.6” |
So there are certainly years where we get off to a slow start with snow and it stays that way (last year, for example) but a third of this sample still ended up with above normal snowfall for the entire winter. Even in some of the winters where we ended up just a bit below normal in snowfall (1998-99 and 2009-10) we went through some pretty snowy periods after November. January 1999 ended up with just over 50” and January 2010 topped 45” Over a four week period, that is still quite a bit of snow.What I would say at this point is not to read too much into the November numbers. I think it is more a sign of a long term trend of lower November snowfalls over the last 30 years than our potential for the entire winter.
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