Natasha Vaughn

Albany (N.Y.) Bureau

ALBANY, N.Y. — Winter has yet to officially start, but snow is already piling up in some parts of upstate New York.

According to the National Weather Service, the areas with the most snow are in Oswego and Lewis counties — which get clobbered each year with snow drifting across the eastern edge of Lake Ontario.

And it's the usual places: the tiny town of Redfield in Oswego County is leading the state with 82.6 inches of snow as of Friday.

So at this rate, Redfield is on pace for its second straight national recognition: Last year it won the USA Today Network's first annual Golden Snowdrift Award after getting 350.5 inches of snow — which equals more than 29 feet.

“There are certain areas of New York that get more snow than others," said meteorologist Christina Speciale of the National Weather Service. "Those spots usually are by Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, and that’s due to lake effect snow.”

Copenhagen in neighboring Lewis County is so far in second place with 74.1 inches, while Osceola also in Lewis County had 49.8 inches of snowfall, the weather service said.

Colden in Erie County was fourth at 47.7 inches.

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"That's the way it is in Copenhagen. It snows all the time in the winter," Keith Scoville, a Copenhagen resident, told WWNYTV based in Watertown.

By comparison, there has been 22 inches at Syracuse International Airport and 16.3 inches at Rochester International Airport.

Poughkeepsie has had 7 inches; Binghamton has gotten 6.1 inches, and White Plains received 5.9 inches, the weather service's data showed.

So far, across most of New York, the amount of snowfall this year has been average to below average, the agency said.

There is snow on the way for parts of New York this weekend.

Between 3 to 5 inches of snow could fall in northern Erie County and the surrounding areas Friday and Saturday, while some snowfall was also expected in New York City on Friday, with the possibility of snow in the Hudson Valley and Rochester on Friday evening, too.