SYRACUSE -- Central New York has already seen a winter's worth of snow - with seven more weeks of winter to go.
According to the National Climatic Data Center, a normal winter's snowfall for Syracuse is just under 112 inches. As of Wednesday, 113 inches had been measured at Hancock International Airport since last fall. And more snow fell on Thursday.
Syracuse received more than 70 inches of snow in December alone, breaking the all-time record for that month. We fell just shy of the record snowfall for any month, which was 78.1 inches in January of 2004.
On January 26, 2001, 113.1 inches of snow had been measured at the airport for the full season, and that winter ended up being the second-snowiest on record with 191.9 inches, just two-tenths of an inch shy of the all-time snowiest in 1992-93.
As of Thursday, Syracuse is in the lead for the annual "Golden Snowball" award, given to the major upstate New York city which receives the most snowfall each winter. Syracuse has received nearly 40 more inches of snow than the next closest competitor, Rochester. Click here for more details on that race from last week.
It has been cold, too. Just this past Monday we experienced bone-chilling temperatures across the region, with some towns seeing temperatures reach -30 (or lower) without factoring in a wind chill. Click here to take a look back at those numbers.
Looking ahead to the rest of the winter, the National Weather Service's website says that the Syracuse area averages 20.1 inches of snowfall in February, with an average temperature of 24.5 degrees. Those numbers improve slightly to 18.8 inches in March, with an average temperature of 33.6 degrees. So, we're not out of the woods yet, but if you're getting tired of winter already things tend to look up a bit from here on out.
A reminder that winter officially began on December 21 and ends on March 20.
Here's a story Chief Meteorologist Wayne Mahar wrote earlier this month with more details on what we can expect for the rest of the season.
So what do you think of this busy winter we're having? Are you tired of the snow and cold, or do you love CNY's winter wonderland? Leave a comment and vote in our poll and tell us what you think of the weather!
Information from the Associated Press and the National Weather service was used in this report.
