The Snowiest City in America
The Snowiest City in America
How climate change is hurting my Central New York identity
Today’s post was originally written on spec as a submission to a journal seeking responses to the prompt “How is your community being shaped and reshaped by climate?” With the piece not selected for publication but written from my heart, I’ve decided to share it with you.
Growing up in Central New York dramatically alters your perception of what constitutes a blizzard. Syracuse is the nation’s snowiest city, and schools in the more rural districts north of the city allow students to ride their snowmobiles to class.
Surviving legendary snowfall is more than just a point of pride for Central New Yorkers — it’s also big business. Despite the region’s lack of prominent mountains, there are multiple ski and board resorts in the Syracuse area. Outdoor retailers profit handsomely by selling winter apparel to new residents and college freshmen each fall, with snow-proof items available to cover you from head to toe. The city of Syracuse alone spends more than $4 million on snow removal annually.
After I graduated from college, I moved across the country to California, settling in Oakland, where snowfall is once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. But my entire family still resides in the Syracuse area, and I bundle up each December to return to the suburb where I spent the first two decades of my life.
Last holiday season, my two-week visit passed without any snow on the ground. While I have certainly lived through green Christmases and New Years before, I can’t recall ever going half a month in December and January without seeing a single snowflake fall from the sky. The city of Syracuse finished the 2023-24 winter having recorded just 60.8 inches of snow, which is less than half of its historic average. The winter’s temperature was a staggering 7.3°F above normal.
A warming planet means more and more of Syracuse’s winter precipitation is falling as rain, not snow. The consequences for the environment are obvious. Species that have adapted over millenia to a life in the snow will become endangered. Floods, once rare for Central New York, are already a growing threat. Crops that have long thrived in the area thanks to the winter’s soil freezes, like apples and maple trees, will be devastated.
The consequences for the region’s cultural heritage are less obvious but no less dire. Try having a snowball fight in a rainstorm. Good luck ice skating in Armory Square when it’s 55°F outside. The region’s ski and snow resorts have relied heavily on man-made snow to operate for much of the past few seasons.
Despite never becoming a skier or snowboarder, so many of my early memories were shaped by the snow. As little kids, my siblings and I built a mental encyclopedia of our town’s best sledding spots, holding the hills that turned a blind eye to ramp construction as if they were a deep-state secret. Each December, my neighborhood, like so many others across the 315, hired a horse-drawn carriage to haul kids up and down the road singing carols and drinking hot cocoa. Would that ride be memorable or even enjoyable if the ground was brown instead of white, if the primary weather concern was sunburb, not frostbite?
Shortly after I received my learner’s permit, my dad woke me up during the season’s first flurry, placed me behind the driver’s seat, and told me to hit the road. If I was ever going to drive in the region alone, he said, it was crucial that I could safely navigate in the snow. I was wholly unprepared for the experience, crawling into the next town down the road at a pathetic 15 miles per hour, but I cherish the memory to this day.
To my dad, the extreme discomfort I felt trying to drive in the snow for the first time was the point. Like so many other lifelong residents of CNY, in his eyes, unexpected snowstorms are a fact of life, something to be trained for rather than a cause for panic. If I had turned 16 this winter as opposed to a decade ago, would he have had the opportunity to give me the same lesson? I don’t think so.
Besides snow, Syracuse is best known for its eponymous academic institution. And, much like how the near-constant sunshine of Los Angeles makes the city the perfect place to film a movie, Syracuse University and the snow have a symbiotic relationship.
Students can enroll in classes with titles like Snow in the Natural and Built Environment. The region’s prolific snowstorms necessitated that the school build a dome for its athletic programs. And because the Dome is utilized not just by the football team, but by the basketball teams as well, Syracuse has repeatedly broken its own record for largest on-campus crowd for a college basketball game. Each February, the campus hosts a winter carnival. Whether you’re a townie or a transplant, it’s impossible to survive four years as a student without learning to have fun in the snow.
A review of Syracue's annual snowfall records leaves no room for doubt; seasonal snowfall is trending precipitously downward. Last year, the first lake effect snowstorm didn’t hit until after Thanksgiving. Christmas Day saw a high of 53°F.
As these alarmingly warm and snow-free winters move from aberrations to the new normal, our climate isn’t the only thing at risk. Those of us raised by Central New York’s blustering blizzards and frigid flurries are in danger of losing the very force of nature that made us who we are today.
Thanks to Syracuse’s prolific snow storms, we are the eye-roll-inducing friends who dismiss non-CNY snowstorms as immaterial, the friendly neighbors happy to help shovel your driveway, and graduates of one of the few schools where basketball, not football, runs the campus. If the climate crisis continues to worsen, we will lose all that and so much more.
Unlike the snowman my siblings and I built in my family’s front yard each year, I refuse to go down without a fight. I live as sustainably as possible and only support politicians who will protect our planet. I do this not just for the climate, but so future generations of kids from Central New York will know the joy of being awoken at 5:15 a.m. by a robocall informing them that classes are canceled on account of a blizzard.
Things I Recommend This Week
Can Breaking Become An Olympic Sport And Still Keep Its Soul? | Deadspin (Archive)
Klay Thompson Left It All In Oakland | Defector
Extreme Beachcombing | HELP I’M ON FIRE (YouTube)
Meet the queen of ‘trad wives’ | The Times
Why wasn't 'Star Wars' sound legend from Syracuse a part of 'The Last Jedi?' | syracuse.com
It’s good to be back! Have a great week.