Last year, Syracuse saw record-low snowfall — that may be the new normal.
With the winter season approaching, central New Yorkers are starting to see more freezing rain, snow and sleet. Richard Ross Shaker, an assistant professor in SUNY ESF’s sustainable resource management department, said snow has always been a big part of New York's culture.
“I think it’s something that we become accustomed to,” Shaker said. “When you’re in Western New York, let’s say the greater Buffalo area, you’re pretty used to Lake Erie dumping that snowfall on those areas and it’s just something that’s part of our culture here. In Syracuse we deal with Lake Ontario and just the snow, the impacts that come off of Lake Ontario.”
But the record low snowfall in Syracuse last year may change what that snow culture looks like. Shaker said impacts from global warming are causing weather patterns to be warmer and wetter, and more precipitation could fall as rain or sleet.
“All I can tell you for sure is that the large-scale trends of those predictions is we are going to see warmer and we are going to see wetter,” Shaker said. “Because we are going to see a warmer Upstate New York, the likelihood of the format in which the precipitation is going to occur is likely going to be a little wetter, meaning a little bit more rain.”
He said global temperature increases will make weather more unpredictable but precipitation will probably rise.
“Sadly, this is going to be our new normal, I would say, in terms of less predictability,” Shaker said. “However, you can still continue to see the precipitation and likely marginal, up to almost a 10% increase in precipitation. The format in which that takes place? That’s still a bit unknown.”
Even with this, Shaker said snow lovers can hold out hope.
“We’re in the snow belt, we’ve always been in the snow belt,” Shaker said. “We’re always going to have snow here to some degree. It would have to be quite the change for us to not see some snow in the wintertime.”
