As a new resident of Binghamton, I'm already beginning to mentally prepare for everything a Binghamton winter brings. Including a chance for the city to reclaim the Golden Snowball award.

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But then a question occurred to me. Do Binghamton residents even want to win the Golden Snowball contest?

On the surface, the Golden Snowball trophy is awesome. The worst part of upstate New York is that the winters are absolutely brutal. Cold temperatures and excessive snow take over the entire region for half the year. So it's cool that an award exists that honors the city that got hit the hardest by snow every year.

So when I heard about the Golden Snowball contest, I instantly assumed that it just traded hands between Buffalo and Rochester. Their proximity to the Great Lakes definitely gives them an edge in winter weather intensity. And I was surprised to learn that Binghamton was actually the winner of the award in the 2020-2021 winter with a whopping 103.2 inches of snow according to a report by Jay Tokasz of The Buffalo News.

Unfortunately for Binghamton, Buffalo took the title in the 2021-2022 winter with 97.4 inches of snow. But oddly enough according to Tokasz's report, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown didn't even want the trophy and Stephen Vermette, a Buffalo State geography professor and meteorologist, had to acquire the award from Binghamton himself to bring it back to Buffalo just a few weeks ago.

That of course begs the question, do Binghamton residents even want to win the Golden Snowball contest?

On one hand, we'd get to rub it in every other city's face that our winter was worse than theirs. Those bragging rights might just be enough to sustain us through the cold, hard winter. On the other hand, actually winning the award probably means that living through a Golden Snowball winning Binghamton winter was especially brutal on a daily basis. People might be much happier with a mild winter even if it meant the Golden Snowball trophy went to another city along with the aforementioned bragging rights.

So what do you think? Do the people of Binghamton want a calm winter? Or do they want an awesome trophy that tells every other city we're tougher than them?

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