Snow Contest!

Advertisement for the Boston Rubber Shoe Company, c. 1910. Click to enlarge.  (Image copyright the City Record and Boston News-Letter, all rights reserved.)

The snowfall prediction contest is now closed.  You can still leave a prediction  but you will not be eligible for the fabulous prize.

Winter is coming, and I’m pleased to announce the return of one of the City Record and Boston News-Letter’s more popular features: the winter snow watch. This year the City Record is sponsoring a contest to predict the total amount of snow Boston will see this winter.  How do you win?  Simply leave your guess for the number of inches of snow Boston will receive this winter as a comment to this post.  You will need to leave a valid email address if you want to win the prize, or, if you are bashful, you can just leave an anonymous guess if you don’t want to win the prize but wish to impress us all with your meteorological skills.  How much snow does Boston typically get?  Here are the snowiest Boston winters on record:

The Frozen Ten

1.  107.6 inches (1995-96)
2.  96.3 inches (1993-94)
3.  89.2 inches (1947-48)
4. 86.6 inches (2004-05) (this number may be slightly higher in the final total)
5.  85.1 inches (1977-78)
6.  83.9 inches (1992-93)
7.  81 inches (1944-45)
8.  79.2 inches (1915-16)
9.  73.4 inches (1919-20)
10. 73.1 inches (1903-04)

Need more information?

Go to accuweather.com via the link below and you can find weather data for the past month, including snow totals.

Link: AccuWeather.com - Past Month Weather for Boston, MA - Last Month's Weather.

For longer term data go to the NOAA National Climatic Data Center

You have until the first snow to enter your prediction and my hope is that the last snow will be sometime in March, although we certainly can’t count out April.  Accuweather.com will be the official snow record for the purposes of this contest.  Any ties will be broken by a random drawing of a single name.

What will you win if you have the prediction closest to the actual snowfall?  A copy of Christopher Lenney’s excellent book Sightseeking: Clues to the Landscape History of New England.

And remember, although the Boston Rubber Shoe Company would like you to think that winter means fun (just don't throw snowballs and be sure to shovel your sidewalks), everyone should also be ready for the type of snow you see below:

Blizzard on Jones Hill, February 2006.  (Photo copyright The City Record and Boston News-Letter

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Comments

[Rhea]

This is fun! I am going to guess 80 inches even.

[Kat]

I'm going with 63.7 inches.

[eeka]

42

[Jesse]

I'll go with 79.7

[JoeyDonuts]

I'm going with 56.2 inches.

[margalit]

I'm going with 54.4 inches. And hoping it comes true.

[Molly]

I'll say 65 inches.

[jake]

58 inches!

[Jonathan]

41.8 inches, the “Approximate Seasonal” snowfall.

[d]

51.5

I never win anything, though, so I'm not optimistic....

[K]

76.3

[Jeff]

68 inches, all at the same time!

[Toby]

43 inches.

[Chris Lenney]

A Great Prize!!! But it brought to mind this Globe article....

Copyright 1994 Globe Newspaper Company
The Boston Globe

March 11, 1994, Friday, City Edition

SECTION: METRO/REGION; Pg. 21

LENGTH: 420 words

HEADLINE: Forecasters of yore cast doubt on snow record

BYLINE: By Tom Coakley, Globe Staff

BODY:
Boston's new snowfall record, set just last week, is already being challenged - but not by any new snowfall.

Instead, some longtime and retired weather forecasters are claiming that the record is a sham. They grumble that the National Weather Service can't possibly dub this season Boston's snowiest, when the rules for measuring snowfall have changed since they were young.

Retired weather professional John Conover argues that today's official technique of measuring the snow every hour on a wooden bench at Logan, and then sweeping it away, means the snow being measured is at its fluffiest. It hasn't been beaten down by more hours of snowfall.

Until about ten years ago, Conover and others note, snowfall was measured only every six hours, or even every 12. It had ample time to settle, to compact - in a word, to slump.

"You can't compare the measurements today with those of yesterday," said Conover, a former research meteorologist from Dedham, who retired in 1977 after 35 years in the weather business.

As another longtime weather expert observed: "Two inches plus two inches doesn't equal four inches."

Weather service personnel dismiss the challenge, insisting that a record is a record, and that 89.5 inches and counting at Logan International Airport is indisputably .3 of an inch more than the former record set in 1947-48.

Conover, and other weather experts who asked not to be named because they didn't want to be seen as criticizing their fellow weatherpersons, point to readings at the Blue Hill Weather Observatory as a clue to where this winter fits in snowfall history.

At Blue Hill, observers sampling two or three times a day have recorded 90.9 inches this winter - far less that the 1947-48 record there of 136 inches. In fact, this year's total at Blue Hill is only the 12th highest on record.

Alan Dunham, the National Weather Service's data aquisition program manager for southern New England, concedes he doesn't know how snow was measured at Logan before he joined the service eight years ago. But the current way is the most accurate, and that's what counts, he says.

"I'm not going to get into whether it's a real record or not," he said. "From my point of view the measurements are accurate and compared to what we have for the old record, we have established a new record. The record is good."

Dunham said the meteorologists have noticed that winter storm patterns that often bring more snow to Blue Hill than the airport have shifted for some reason this year.

LOAD-DATE: March 12, 1994