If there is any shot across the bow, a warning to ride now for the best conditions remaining in this absolutely long 2024-25 snowmobile season, TODAY AND TOMORROW ARE YOUR DAYS! If you have ANY chance to take today and/or tomorrow off to ride and can afford the time, DO IT NOW!!! Seriously. Do it now. After what blows through Wednesday, simply put, you’ll wish that you had.
Hello! So you probably are asking “where the hell I have been”?! I have a good answer for you. On Tuesday Morning 2.25, I was in laparoscopic surgery at Patewood Hospital in Greenville, SC. This was not just any laparoscopy surgery. This was to take out my left adrenal gland. This gland, since my early 30’s, before my Upstate Snow days (which started in 2012 when I was 36), has been responsible as the main source of my high blood pressure. Let me tell you that high blood pressure is the silent killer. I let my blood pressure stay too elevated for way too long. Then on August 16, 2022, life changed forever. I had a severe stroke that just about killed me that day. 9 days later on August 25th, 2022, I nearly dies yet again. Two months later on November 1, 2022, I fainted at a Chick-fil-A then ended up in an ER for the next 10 hours. Then after that spent my 47th birthday in the hospital all the way to the mid term elections on November 8th. By then I was down to 201 pounds, the lowest I had been since we got married by 5 pounds. The last 2+ years has been a big struggle with diet, weight and keeping my pressures under control. I was on 5 high blood pressure medications. The adrenal gland finding was just a new discovery, after my 2022 stroke. It was found I was a slam dunk for this surgery in October of 2024. That surgery happened this past Tuesday. Instead of being on 5 full medicines now, I am partially on 2 medicines now. I will be getting adjustments and have several follow up appointments in the next two weeks. I can’t wait for this chapter of my life finally to be over. To any of you guys whom have had to deal with this either as hard as I have, or as little as I have, I feel you every single bit. Do whatever you can to keep your HBP’s in control. Don’t let it get out of control. Ever. I can’t drive ever again. I can’t work ever again. I am retired prior to 50. Don’t let this be you.
So sorry about that long paragraph, but since I have over 20,000 followers I have built up over the last 13 years, I figured I owed you guys a reasonable explanation. Upstate Snow, no matter where I live, whether it’s South Carolina, Virginia, Florida, Nevada, or anywhere else in the US or around the world, will continue on as long as I am here. With my 21 year old son Zack as my co-pilot, he will be slowly getting into this more and more each year. One day, he may run 100% of it. Who knows what the future holds. Just know that Upstate Snow is NOT GOING ANYWHERE!
Especially after the last 60 days. OH MY WORD! The last 60 days have been the absolute best last 60 days for snowmobiling we have seen in 10 years! Not since the 2014-15 season have we seen this amount of sustained snowfall and sustained cold. Unfortunately with nearly all of the last 60 days below freezing day and night, incredible amounts of lake effect snow piling up all winter long, at some point, it needs to melt! Many areas in the Tug Hill have over 300 inches of snow with 10-15 inches of water equivalent in it! If it stays too much longer and/or melts too fast, we could be looking at a top 10 if not top 5 all time record flood here. It has been since 1993, 32 years ago, that we have seen this area hit so bad with heavy lake snows followed by flooding in the spring. We got so lucky in 2015 we got out of the flooding with sunny mild days and below freezing nights. Could this be our once in a generation with good or with bad???
RIDE NOW!
With the bitter cold air from this weekend modifying quickly, today is definitely the best day to ride. Even after weekend conditions and heavy traffic. Tonight if you would like a moonlight ride, especially later at night, go for it! Tuesday temperatures climb above freezing. It goes well into the 30s to near 40 in the higher elevations. In the lower elevations, we will be easily above 40 degrees. This will get the melting going, especially where snowpack is questionable. For clubs just hanging on right now, the swan song for the season could be shortly.
UGLY @$#%&!
Tuesday Night, WEDNESDAY and even into Wednesday Night… it looks BRUTAL. Seriously it does. It has looked this way for several days. If there was a storm that would take out a lot of the snow pack in Upstate NY and just leave the gobs of snow left downwind of Lake Ontario, this would be it. Looking at 1 to 2 inches of straight RAIN. Possibly even a few thunderstorms in areas closer to PA and NJ. With all that water hitting all that water in the snowpack: WATCH OUT! Black River. Moose River. All the creeks coming off of Tug Hill. The Mohawk River. Fish Creek and Oneida Lake. West Canada Creek. East Canada Creek. Hudson River. All of these that I have mentioned have a HIGH RISK for flooding. Especially in this situation. Flood Watches are already up in all of NWS Buffalo’s Zones. I expect later today to see Binghamton, Albany, and Burlington fall in line on this one.
COOLING DOWN AFTER THIS.
Still staying above normal with scattered showers on Thursday. It looks like the change back to snow with some accumulations for the Tug Hill and down wind of Lake Ontario, the best chances would be Thursday Night and into the day on Friday. Still too early to put a map out on that yet. I am hoping to do so by Wednesday.
UH OH. AGAIN!
It looks like after next weekend, snowmobile season’s time bomb is ticking towards a BOOM! As we head towards mid March with temperatures SQUARELY above normal (which this time of year means more days in the 40s and 50s for highs and above freezing at night), it means the snowmobile season could go from OMG SO MUCH SNOW, to DIE HARD in just a few short weeks. Don’t lose track of the numbers. I know March can be a cold, stormy and crazy month. When it is not, it can blow torch you and melt you away in a hurry! And it looks like it might be doing just that to us.
THANK YOUR FOR YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT OF UPSTATE SNOW! SINCE 2012!!!
Zack and Rich Lupia
Upstate Snow
March 3, 2025
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