October’s start on Friday marks the unofficial beginning of winter in the nation’s worst winter weather city: Syracuse, according to the Farmers’ Almanac.

‘Wet weather is going to begin in October,’ said Sandi Duncan, the managing editor of the Farmers’ Almanac. ‘So here come the gloomy skies.’

Syracuse has long been identified for bad seasonal weather, but the Farmers’ Almanac made it official in a Sept. 7 release. The Almanac named Syracuse the ‘Worst Winter Weather City’ in the United States because of long winters, big snows and the gloomy atmosphere that hangs over the city starting in October.

‘Unfortunately, Syracuse made our checklist,’ Duncan said. ‘It definitely came up as one of the top winter weather cities. But like we said, it’s all what you think is worst weather, too.’

The 2011 edition of the Farmers’ Almanac reports Syracuse winters, which run October through April, have average temperatures in the lower 30s, with nighttime lows in the teens and subzero temperature drops. The city averages almost 120 inches of snow per season — more than Buffalo, Rochester, Albany or Binghamton. Cloud cover throughout the season means Syracuse receives about one-third of possible sunshine.

This winter season, Duncan said Syracuse can expect storms in December, but not much snow pile-up until January. The Farmers’ Almanac uses a formula that draws from sunspot and moon activity and the position of the planets. Only one person knows the formula, which was created in 1818. Duncan said their predictions for the weather, made months in advance, are usually about 80 percent correct.

This is the first time the Farmers’ Almanac has ranked cities based on bad winter weather. Syracuse was included on 2002’s bad weather city list, but now moved up in the ranks because of new requirements, Duncan said. Population was taken into account, meaning Syracuse beat out other locations that may receive worst winter weather, but are not large enough to be considered cities.

Duluth, Minn., Casper, Wyo., Cleveland and Detroit also made the list. Duncan said the editor of the Farmers’ Almanac received a call from Buffalo to commend the choice to have Syracuse top the list. The caller felt Syracuse was notorious for bad weather, but Buffalo was often given the bad name, she said.

Mark Monmonier, professor of geography and author of ‘Air Apparent: How Meteorologists Learned to Map, Predict, and Dramatize Weather,’ said he did not think Syracuse had the worst winter weather.

‘Quite frankly, having been out to Minneapolis one winter, it is bitter cold out there, and that would be far worse than what we get here,’ he said.

Syracuse winters are a mix of lake effect and ocean effect snow, but not the blizzards that have shut down cities in the Northeast corridor. He said the snow storms that hit Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Philadelphia were especially bad last year because the cities did not have the equipment or planning needed.

This is not true for Syracuse, he said.

‘We get a fair amount of snow, it blows around a lot,’ Monmonier said. ‘But generally speaking, we can deal with it.’

Mary O’Brien, reference archivist at E.S. Bird Library, said Syracuse being known for bad weather is nothing new.

‘I well remember the headline for the 1993 blizzard — ‘Syracuse is Snow King’ — with over 42 inches having fallen over the weekend,’ O’Brien said in an e-mail.

The Blizzard of 1966 and 1993 are two incidents considered the worst in SU history because of their poor timing, O’Brien said.

SU scheduled students to go home for the Christmas holiday, return for finals and then have the semester break in 1966. But the Blizzard of 1966 hit in late January, as students returned to campus for the spring semester.

Classes were canceled for the first time in SU history because of the Blizzard of 1993. It hit campus over the weekend of March 12 through 13, and the amount of snowfall canceled Monday classes.

Despite being the worst winter city, students are unlikely to get out of class. The university’s protocol for ice and snow closing states SU will generally remain open unless weather affects transportation. Thirty-six or more inches of snow accumulation during a 24-hour period may result in closing or delays, and heavy snowfall, an ice storm or freezing rain in the morning may result in a delay. 

Aaron Witzel, an undecided freshman in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, hails from Rochester, so he said he knew to expect Syracuse’s ‘snowy, gloomy, unpredictable’ winter weather. 

‘When winter comes around,’ Witzel said, ‘it’s hardly ever sunny, always gloomy, dark.’

dkmcbrid@syr.edu

Published on September 29, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Contact Dara: dkmcbrid@syr.edu | @daramcbride