Reported by: Kayla Murphy

With the summer quickly approaching, it is time for SUNY Oswego students to start applying for housing for the upcoming semester. This is a four step process that ensures an efficient way to establish housing for the upcoming semester.

The first of the four steps was an in person mandatory meeting. This took place in the Hart Hall lounge from March 1^st-8^th. This meeting was to inform the potential on campus students to the rules and guidelines for enrolling in on campus housing. Then the students signed a form stating they had indeed gone to the mandatory meeting.

The second of the four steps is to submit the 100 dollar deposit and agree to the terms of room and board. This step must be completed by Tuesday march 8^th. This secures the students spot on campus in a residence hall.

The third of the four steps is submitting housing preferences. This includes roommate(s) / suitemates as well as residence hall and room preference. The forth step is to simply choose from the available space and select the final choices.

This process is currently underway and the deadline for step two, the hundred dollar deposit it this Tuesday march 8^th. So if you plan on living on campus the fall of 2016 make sure to complete these steps.

Winter may not be over yet, but just by looking around you would think it ended weeks ago. The few signs that remain of winter slowly melted away last week as temperatures soared into the 40’s. According to Dr. Scott Steiger the local co-op observer for the National Weather Service, we’ve only received forty-nine point one inches of snow as of February 29th.

An alarming seven feet below the average snowfall for this time of year. Though it’s not surprising that we’ve seen so little snowfall, through the winter months Oswego ran 2.9 degrees above average temperature-wise. January saw the worst of the effects of the warm winter at an amazing 6 degrees above average.

Students, either way, have taken advantage of the spring-like conditions and have used the time to spend their days outside. While others were left waiting for the snow that never came like Florida native Bruno Rojas. Bruno had this to say about the past winter in Oswego “There weren’t that many lake effect events in Oswego so you never really got to see…big snow storms, where you could just sit down you know in the snow and just kind of watch the really big snowflakes kind of fall really gracefully. ”

Many have expressed similar views, asking constantly where was winter this year? The answer? There was a strong Arctic Oscillation or AO, that was in its positive phase. When it’s in a positive phase we oftentimes see a lot of the cold air trapped up in Canada. It’s when it enters its negative phase that it starts to allow the colder air to funnel down into the United States. and that’s what allows for those cold Oswego winters that we all know.

While this was certainly an anomalous winter, it is part of a longer-term trend of winter warming across upstate New York. The trend becomes obvious on this chart from climate central, showing how Syracuse’s average winter temperatures have warmed 2.8° since 1970. While this chart is only for Syracuse, the changes can be seen all across New York as our climate continues to change.