Tag: Lake-effect snow

Do You Miss Buffalo?

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I was just on the phone with my dad. We talked about the weather a little. He’s in Milwaukee where it’s 29 with a wind chill of 22. My office window thermometer shows 72.

“Bet you’re glad you’re not in Buffalo,” he said.

I am.

766 Auburn Ave Google Maps

I lived here, at 766 Auburn Avenue (Google streetview link) in the third floor apartment. It was a beautiful one bedroom with no insulation and enough water pressure to take a shower if no one in the other two apartments was! During the summer we were woken by squirrel races on the roof.

Those who live in Buffalo do so by choice. Anyone who wanted to leave left a long time ago. There is a survivor spirit among the residents.

It is a really nice, liveable city. Real estate is very reasonable. Summers are magical. Winters are hellish.

Starting in mid-November a thick veil of low clouds descends upon the city. This is the beginning of the process that spawns Lake Effect snow. It’s convection, like bubbles in a pot of boiling water. It will remain mainly cloudy with a handful of exceptions until spring.

This time of year the Great Lakes are warm and the flow through the atmosphere cold. Warm air near the lake’s surface is drawn up, condensing as it cools. Clouds form, often dropping snow.

Lake Effect season begins suddenly. The start is when the potential for big storms is greatest… as we saw this past week. Once Lake Erie freezes the process shuts down.

Lake Ontario doesn’t freeze. Sorry Syracuse.

For a real Lake Effect event, winds must be aligned through the atmosphere often parallel to a lake’s longest dimension.

These storms are VERY localized. The physics involved in Lake Effect snow is very similar to summertime thunderstorm formation. In fact, sometimes thundersnow is part of a Lake Effect storm.

Think “thunderstorm downpour” of snow… except instead of moving on, the storm continues for hours or days relentlessly.

aurora

This graph is from East Aurora, NY. Under land use it’s marked, “Urban.” People live there. That’s over 30″ of snowpack with a water equivalent of 5″.

The edges of Lake Effect storms are well pronounced. You drive out of Lake Effect snow like you drive out of a summer thunderstorm. And these boundaries stay in place as long as the wind doesn’t shift.

No one can cope with this much snow. No one is equipped, even those areas that get as much as 200″ of snow a year!

“Yes, Dad. I’m glad I’m not in Buffalo.” But I don’t regret a day of living there.

Buffalo And The World’s Weirdest Weather

The photo at the top of this entry is Buffalo, Wednesday afternoon. The Sun is shining brightly.

Wondering where the snow is?

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The photo at the top of this entry is Buffalo, Wednesday Tuesday afternoon. It’s my old neighborhood on Elmwood Avenue. The Sun is shining brightly.

Wondering where the snow is?

robhimself793: I’m about a mile from the snow band, I have very little snow, maybe 6″. Just a mile south and people have 3 feet.

You’re seeing one of the more interesting aspects of Lake Effect snow. It is VERY localized. There’s heavy snow just a few miles from where this image was captured.

Lake Effect snow is the product of convection. Heat and moisture are transferred upward into the clouds from the relatively warm lake. You can see that in this time lapse of Lake Erie, one of the coolest pieces of weather video I’ve ever seen.

Heavy Lake Effect snow needs cold wind roughly parallel to the lake to get going. The resulting storm forms slender ‘streamers’ which reach out from the lake. They are often just a few miles wide, with flurries at the edges and white out conditions in the middle!

Near the Great Lakes it’s possible to drive from no snow to 4″/hour conditions in just two or three miles! These bands can stay stationary for hours, or even days!

Buffalo gets a lot of snow each winter, over 90 inches! Because of Lake Effect there are heavier snowbelts south of the city. People in Buffalo scratch their heads why anyone would want to live there, as we scratch our heads over Buffalo.

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Continue reading “Buffalo And The World’s Weirdest Weather”

The Buffalo Snowmap

Here’s a map from the Weather Service recounting this storm. The 1-3 foot area is only 12 miles wide! It’s not much more than 6-7 miles from three feet of snow to zero.

Earlier today I posted my Lake Effect snow story. If you read it one of the points I tried to bring home was how narrow these bands really are. Now documentary proof!

Here’s a map from the Weather Service recounting this storm. The 1-3 foot area is only 12 miles wide! It’s not much more than 6-7 miles from three feet of snow to zero.

Click the map to see a larger view.

My Lake Effect Snow Story

The best way to explain Buffalo’s lake effect snow is with a little story. It was the day Helaine and I got our marriage license. Because we were getting married in Pennsylvania we had to drive to Erie, PA.

This evening at 4:45 the Weather Service office in Buffalo relayed a report from West Seneca, NY. A volunteer observer measured 32″ of snow from Thursday’s persistent lake effect snowband.

I wasn’t surprised.

Winter weather in the Buffalo area is brutal. The city itself gets ‘only’ around 80″ of snow per year. The snow belt south of town can get as much as 150″. East of Lake Ontario, closer to Syracuse, it’s even worse.

The area east of Lake Ontario is the “snow capital” of the east. The higher elevations between Watertown and Syracuse, commonly known as the Tug Hill Plateau, receives of more than 200 inches a year. In fact, the town of Hooker, located in Lewis county, recorded 466 inches of snow during the winter of 1976-77! – source: National Weather Service Buffalo Forecast Office

I lived in Buffalo from 1980 through 1984. I will never forget those winters. It seemed to snow nearly every day even if only flurries.

The best way to explain Buffalo’s Lake Effect snow is with a little story. It was the day Helaine and I got our marriage license. We were living in Buffalo. We were getting married in Pennsylvania. The closest place to get a license was Erie, PA, about 100 miles away.

As we left our apartment skies were cloudy. By South Buffalo there were flurries. We paid our toll and got on the New York State Thruway. We passed West Seneca in heavy snow.

I was used to Western New York driving conditions so we continued southwest on the Thruway paralleling Lake Erie’s shoreline. By Dunkirk the snow was back down to flurries. Soon we were in bright sunshine. I remember the skies over Erie being blue and cloud free!

We paid our money, showed our blood tests (another story for another day–blood tests almost kept us from getting married) and got our license.

As we headed back to Buffalo every bit of weather was in the exact same place we left it!

From Erie’s sunshine we hit flurries in Dunkirk. Over the course of a few miles the snow ramped up in intensity. It was snowing heavily as we passed through West Seneca then back to flurries by South Buffalo. I parked under cloudy skies back at our Gates Circle apartment where there was no sign any new snow had fallen.

That’s the power of Lake Effect snow: Persistence!

Lake Effect snow bands are often just a few miles wide, but within those few miles snowfall rates of 4 or 5 inches per hour are possible. The strength of cold air aloft and alignment of wind decides where the snow goes and its intensity. The wind needs a long ‘fetch’ over Lake Erie to be effective as a snow maker. That limits where Lake Effect snow can fall.

As long as the cold wind blows the snow can fall for hours or even days! A few miles often decides whether you get feet of snow or just a dusting.

There are only a handful of places in the world where this setup of cold air and properly aligned body of water exist. Buffalo and Syracuse just got lucky I guess.