The Bills just finished an unexpectedly poor season, which will likely result in yet another franchise rebuilding.
Those are two valid reasons for Western New Yorkers to be glum as we head into midwinter.
Here's a third: We're one mostly sun-free day away from tying Buffalo's all-time record for consecutive days where we experienced zero percent of the day's potential sunlight.
Tuesday was the 11th straight sun-starved day. The record is 12, set in 1902 and 1920.
That's a long stretch of gray, acknowledges one of the men whose job is to record just how much sunshine Buffalo gets. This is determined by comparing the number of minutes of sunshine observed with the total number of minutes between sunrise and sunset.
"I can't really remember the last shift where I had to wear my sunglasses to go outside, and the only time I wear them is here, to be able to clearly see the sunshine," said Tony Luppino, one of six weather observers at Buffalo Niagara International Airport.
Under a contract with the Federal Aviation Administration, Buffalo's weather-watchers monitor and verify the readings of an automated surface observation system, and they record data the machine cannot detect.
Since 2001, when the government scrapped a trouble-prone machine that used a photosensor to measure available sunshine, one of the observers' chores has been to determine the amount of sunshine that is seen at the airport.
It's not exactly an exact science.
There is no written policy for sunshine observations, but both Jerry Sukmanowsky, a retired Air Force meteorologist, and Luppino say they keep a notebook at their desk and try to look out their window at the airport periodically. Also, once an hour, they head out to the tarmac to double-check the automated system and look for the sun.
"You make a call: Is it actually sunshine?" Luppino said. "If you see a halfway decent shadow, call it sunshine. If it's barely visible, I would not call it sunshine."
The relentless gray fuels a depression called seasonal affective disorder.
Psychiatrist Wendy Weinstein says the depression mostly relates to the shortening of days during winter.
"People get very depressed and overwhelmed. Add on the cloudy days and it just worsens the whole thing," said Weinstein, who treats patients with the disorder. "It's marked by hibernation, sleeping more and eating more."
The disorder can be helped with medication or with use of a light therapy unit, which is essentially a briefcase-size box that shines a specialized light on its subjects.
Sunshine not only affects mental well-being, but physical health as well.
The action of sunlight on skin is a major source of Vitamin D, which regulates phosphorous and calcium absorption, and promotes proper functioning of the thyroid and pituitary glands.
Insufficient Vitamin D levels have been linked to rickets in children and osteoporosis and autoimmune disorders in adults. And researchers at the University of California at San Diego have shown a link between Vitamin D deficiency and some cancers.
Marcia Honsberger, owner of Best of Health in Kenmore, is a registered nurse and nutritional consultant. She also is a big believer in Vitamin D supplements.
"Everyone north of Tennessee should be on a couple of thousand international units a day in the winter," she said. The California study suggested that taking 1,000 units a day appears to lower a person's risk of developing those cancers by up to 50 percent.
National Weather Service meteorologist Dave Sage said that there is a decent chance to break the record. Today's weather forecast: cloudy.
The sun did peek through at the airport Tuesday, according to Luppino, but not enough to register 1 percent of the potential 547 minutes of sunshine. About three minutes would do the trick.
"Between the hours of 1 and 2 p.m.," he said, "there was a minute of sunshine."
e-mail: jbonfatti@buffnews.com
