Every winter season, five cities in Upstate New York participate in what is known as the Golden Snowball Contest.  Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse race to see which city can accumulate the most total snowfall.  The city that receives the most snow has the honor of taking home the coveted Golden Snowball Trophy, as has been off-and-on tradition for the better part of the past 50 years.

Syracuse, as witnessed by students at Le Moyne College, dominated the competition this winter.  At a total of 115.4 inches, according to goldensnowball.com, the Syracuse community received nearly 30 more inches of snow than second place Rochester.  Syracuse’s win dethroned the previous champion Buffalo, which was on a three-year win streak.

Syracuse has a long and storied history with the contest.  Of the 48 years that the competition has been held, Syracuse has claimed the top spot a record 31 times.  This includes a stretch from 2003 to 2016 where Syracuse landed in first place 13-out-of-14 times.

Going back even farther, since snowfall stat tracking began for each city during the 1951–52 winter season, Syracuse has been the leader amongst the five cities a staggering 50 out of 73 winters.

This has provided Syracuse with a reputation as being one of the snowiest places in not only New York, but the entire United States.  However, as of recent years, this has not been the case.

Before claiming the trophy this winter, Syracuse had gone the previous six years without claiming the top spot.  At no other point in the competition’s history had Syracuse gone more than two years without winning the Golden Snowball.

During that winless streak, Syracuse received less than 90 inches of snowfall each winter, far below the city’s average of 127.8 inches.  This has allowed other cities like Rochester, Binghamton, and most notably Buffalo to get a chance at the award.

Dr. Stephen Vermette is a professor in the geosciences department at SUNY Buffalo State, and has been taking care of the Golden Snowball trophy for Buffalo the past few years.  He provided context for the differing ways in which Syracuse receives snow compared to cities such as Buffalo:

“Buffalo, to win the contest, is dependent on amassing huge snow totals from a few lake-effect storm events early in the winter season, while Syracuse amasses its snow total from numerous smaller snowfalls throughout the winter. Buffalo has a chance of winning the contest if its winter includes one or two big lake-effect events, and if Lake Erie remains ice free. Otherwise, the steady accumulation of snow in Syracuse is the reason that Syracuse historically wins the contest.”

Vermette noted that it could be the changing wind patterns that have been unfavorable to Syracuse in recent winters:

“For the contest, the only thing that counts is the amount of snow measured on the snow board at each city’s weather station…In the six years that Rochester, Buffalo, and Binghamton won the award, the lake-effect bands off lake Ontario consistently missed the snow board at the Hancock airport (Syracuse’s weather station), while dropping sufficient snow in Rochester, combined with Buffalo experiencing some sizeable winter storms, and Binghamton benefiting from synoptic snows and nor’easters.”

When asked about what the future of the Golden Snowball contest will look like, Vermette said he does expect Buffalo to continue to be a major player for the award.

“In a warming world, Lake Erie may stay warmer and not freeze to the same extent as in the past, giving Buffalo some notable lake-effect events and a longer lake-effect snow season,” Vermette said.

Despite there now being a heightened level of competition amongst the five cities, Dr. Vermette does see Syracuse’s six-year drought as more of an aberration than a future trend:

“I can tell you that while winter snowfall totals vary greatly from year to year, the trend in Buffalo shows no change to our annual snowfall average. The same can be said with the number of lake-effect snow events in Western New York. I believe that Syracuse will continue to experience healthy amounts of snow.”