That's what Josh texted us yesterday. IT IS APRIL!! The poor kid is a victim of lake effect snow. We regularly send him warm hugs but he is no longer accepting them. A blizzard this late in the season should be outlawed. No question about it. With the text came this picture.
So, what is lake effect snow and why is it so nasty?
When a cold mass of air moves across a warm body of water, it fills up with water vapor and the frozen precipitation drops on the leeward - or downwind - side of the lake. The Great Lakes rarely fully freeze. If they did, then lake effect would not happen. They freeze in parts but continue to fuel the air with water throughout the winter months.
Syracuse, NY is on the leeward side. The weather can go from bright and sunny to grey and miserable within minutes. We have witnessed this transformation and I can tell you it is nuts.
The city is the current recipient of the Golden Snowball Trophy, an award given to the city in NY that gets the maximum snowfall in a season. Syracuse has won the trophy every year since 2002 except for two years. With an average of 123.8" of snow each year, the city beats its peers by a long shot. Let this sink in: the city gets over 10 feet of snow every year!! And absolutely nothing stops and nobody bats an eyelid. Quite a contrast to Washington DC which collapses into a fetal position at the sight of a snow flurry.
Ten feet doesn't happen all at once, of course. It's a steady state of snowfall from December to February. Kinda like half the month. This would be enough to make me pack my car and scoot out of town in a hurry. Josh can't do that so the chart below is to remind him that it does stop snowing...eventually...like in June.
Summer is coming, dude, hopefully before the days start getting shorter! Until then, sending warmest of hugs to the crankiest kid in the snow belt :)
