A couple of week’s ago I spoke to the local Penn State Club about Syracuse weather. I had always thought that we get (and give ourselves) a bad rap when it comes to our weather and here was my chance to change a few minds.
First, I didn’t pull any punches about the snow. Sure, we get a lot of it but a) we know how to deal with it (kudos go out to the state and local plow crews!) and b) we know how to have fun in it. Unlike a day with rain, on a day with snow, if you are physically able to, you can actually go outside and do things! You can ski, snowmobile, snowshoe or even ice fish in numerous spots all over central New York. If anything I think we don’t market the snow enough. (our ‘strength’ between December and March). Up north in Ottawa and Quebec City they have long running winter festival/carnivals where they revel in the cold and snow. It would be nice if we could ‘grow’ our winter carnival.
In addition, here in central New York we don’t have tornado sirens or hurricane evacuation route signs like other parts of the country. Flooding and wildfires that displace large numbers of people are not common around here either. We don’t have to deal with those types of extreme weather.
Finally, I looked at temperatures. I started from a position of strength: our summers. I believe our summer temperatures were more comfortable than just about anywhere else so I made up my own index: the Jim Teske index (JTI) My hypothesis was that the most comfortable range during summer for most of us would be between 75 and 85 degrees. . About 2/3 of our summer days (June-August) fell in that range and we are near the top of that list. If you look at the map to the right you see we come way ahead of most areas across the southern part of the United States.
Some of you took the poll on line a few weeks ago and you threw me a bit of a curve: a majority thought that 65-75 degrees was the most comfortable range (51% vs 36% for 75-85 degrees). That’s the beauty of science. You make a hypothesis, test it and if the results don’t come out the way you expect you can re-define and re-test. Before my next presentation I may apply the 65-75 degree range to the cities I used.
Anyhow, back to my original hypothesis. It’s easy to cherry pick just those summer months. What if you extended that criteria (75-85) throughout the whole year? This is what really shocked me. We are actually on par with some pretty notable cities down south and we actually beat some! On top of that, the most common high temperature in our 100+ years of record keeping is—drum roll please – 80 degrees! Tah dah!
So while we are not all of a sudden going to be a destination for the beach loving set we should embrace what Mother Nature gives us and realize we don’t have a corner on the ‘bad weather’ market.
