Yesterday a viewer from Cazenovia e-mailed us a picture that reminded us of late season snowstorm on this date just one year ago. It was a view of a pine tree bending under the weight of heavy wet snow.  An area of low pressure tracked east through the middle of the country then strengthened once it reached the East Coast. The storm stalled near New York City on the 16th and central New York ended up just cold enough for wet snow. A general 6-12" snowfall occurred over all of central New York that day.  Some of the higher elevations south of Syracuse (including Cazenovia) ended up with a foot and a half of snow.

The National Weather Service has a good summary of this storm on their web site. It has an excellent snow total map and pictures as well:

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/bgm/WeatherEvents/Snow/april162007/april162007.shtml

I did a little digging through the stats and I found that even though the chances for measurable snow are slim in late April it can happen. Since records have been kept at the airport we have had at least a tenth of an inch of snow after April once every 3 years.  Something more significant, say 2 inches or more in one day, happens only once every 15 years. This is certainly not to scare everyone about using getting snow in the next 2 weeks but more to put last years snowstorm into some historical perspective. Then, of course, there is May snow which occurs once every 10 years.

Jim