Buffalo Bumble

Reports through 945 pm Thursday. ********************STORM TOTAL SNOWFALL******************** LOCATION STORM TOTAL TIME/DATE COMMENTS SNOWFALL OF /INCHES/ MEASUREMENT NEW YORK ...Erie County... Buffalo Airport 6.2 651 PM 12/06 NWS Office 1 NW Williamsville 5.3 800 PM 12/06 NWS Employee 1 WNW Alden 4.8 700 PM 12/06 TRAINED SPOTTER Tonawanda 4.5 600 PM 12/06 Trained Spotter Springville 3.0 700 PM 12/06 Co-Op Observer 5 NE Springville 3.0 700 PM 12/06 Co-Op Observer Sardinia 2.0 900 PM 12/06 Snow Spotter ...Jefferson County... S Watertown 22.7 900 PM 12/06 Snowfall through 9 pm Carthage 20.0 700 PM 12/06 CoCoRaHS Watertown 18.0 840 PM 12/06 Social Media 1 S Watertown 18.0 700 PM 12/06 Social Media Adams Center 7.1 524 PM 12/06 Snow Spotter ...Lewis County... Copenhagen 16.0 703 PM 12/06 Social Media ...Monroe County... Rochester Airport 0.6 700 PM 12/06 ASOS 2 NE Webster 0.5 800 PM 12/06 Co-Op Observer ...Niagara County... Lockport 4.0 700 PM 12/06 Co-Op Observer 4NE Lockport 4.0 700 PM 12/06 Co-Op Observer ...Orleans County... Albion 1.2 500 PM 12/06 Co-Op Observer

Heavy snow here for the last hour. The L Erie band exploded nicely as the cold front got closer. Always amazed to watch lake effect events unfold. Sagging southward now, I should end up with about 6" for the day. Very nice little event on the Niag Frontier.

She's alive...

Kind of a convoluted mess over Lake Erie right now. Time's running short to get a new consolidated band to fire up. Like Freak said, the band over Ontario looks pretty sweet right now though.

About 3" of fresh snow cover IMBY. Snow is actually quite heavy, not the usual fluffy LE. It will be interesting watching the radar thru the afternoon to see if/where the band becomes reestablished off L Erie as the trof swings through, and how intense it becomes on its journey south.

Same here. Flake size decent, eyeballing 1.5”/hr rate.

Good write-up from BUF on the upcoming LE. Throwing lots of caveats in about parameters and band placement. Which I have no problem with considering that predicting lake effect for any one area is really just a well educated guessing game. BTW - that's quite an atmospheric perturbation modeled over our area at hour 240. La la land, but shows up on both GFS and Euro. Tonight the axis of the surface ridge will slip a little further southeastward...while a modest clipper system over the Upper Great Lakes slowly pushes toward our area. Consequently...the general weak westerly flow across our region will gradually turn more west- southwesterly...strengthen...and become more sheared...while inversion heights will climb a little to around 7 kft over Lake Erie and to around 8 kft over Lake Ontario. With a cold enough airmass remaining in place for a lake response...this will result in light to modest lake snows developing east of both lakes this evening...with these then slowly becoming better organized and shifting northward to the Buffalo and Watertown areas overnight. At this point it still appears that the aforementioned cap and increasing shear should help to keep the lake snows on the weaker side through most of, if not all of tonight...which in tandem with the migratory nature of the snow should translate into total nighttime accums remaining confined to the 1 to 2 inch range. A notable increase in synoptic moisture will commence overnight tonight ahead of the approaching clipper system. Outside of these areas of lake snows... it will be generally dry with just some scattered snow showers or flurries...and nighttime lows ranging from the lower 20s across far interior sections to the upper 20s to near 30 along the lakeshores. On Thursday, steepening boundary layer lapse rates, increasing moisture, and still present cold 850Ts of around -9C, will help intensify the lake bands off of each lake. Both lake effect snowbands, one off of Lake Erie, the other off of Lake Ontario, will shift north to the Buffalo Metro and toward Watertown Thursday morning into the afternoon. Wind profiles are still suggesting enough shear to lower some of the snowfall potential. Meandering of the lake band over the northtowns and northwestern Jefferson County on Thursday will also help aid in reducing snow amounts that any one place in particular will receive. It is important to note, that if winds are less sheared, or weaker in general it will result in higher snowfall amounts over areas where the band(s) of snow persist the longest. Temperatures hovering around freezing will also help keep snow ratios down, with most areas on Thursday receiving around 3 to 5 inches of snow where the lake effect snow band persist the longest off of Lake Erie. Off of Lake Ontario, snow accumulations of 3 to 6 inches will occur in areas of higher terrain and where the snow band persists the longest. As the clipper shifts from the Georgian Bay to western Quebec between Thursday morning and evening, it will drag a cold front across the area. Timing of this cold frontal passage will also be key to the timing of both lake effect snow bands to move south. If this cold front is slower to move through then that will help keep lake snows farther north for longer, resulting in some higher snowfall amounts. Gusty winds on Thursday will be strongest within and near the strongest portions of the lake effect snow bands, with some wind gusts to 35 MPH possible, resulting in areas of blowing snow and reducing visibilities even more so than with just the snowfall. Temperatures on Thursday will be in the lower to mid 30s, with the warmer areas being away from the lake snows and in the lower elevations. With temperatures in the low to mid 30s on Thursday, blowing snow will be limited some, but should still occur within areas of the strongest bands of snow as winds will also be strongest there.

About 5” OTG here. That was my first measurement so storm total likely around 6”. “Storm” snow falling now - low grey sky, good flake size and intensity.

Flipped to snow here about 30 minutes ago. Decent flake size, not overly wet. Current temp 32 deg, if we can get the temp to hold here or drop a tick we should be able to accumulate decently on the Niagara Frontier during the day. These retro lows to our northeast have a history of overproducing at BUF and points north, so wouldn't surprise me to hit the high end or even exceed current forecast.

Wow, that’s a great look. Kind of a spread the wealth synoptic/lake enhancement setup. Localized snow screw jobs aside, this has been a pretty incredible stretch of late fall/early winter weather. Even IMBY where accumulations have been light, snow has been in the air more frequently than I can remember for any previous November.

OT, but Sabres keep this sh$&%^t up please. I’ll take 20” seasonal total at BUF for playoffs!!

That would be a new one in my years of weather watching. A low that retrogrades from the EC all the way back to Upper GL’s with enough cold air back in front of the low for a SW flow lake effect event. I suppose it’s possible if blocking is strong enough, but color me highly skeptical at this point.

This game is insane!!! So was the Sabres game! Crazy sports night.

Trying so hard to snow here. Big flakes battling with viscous little pingers for supremacy.

Sleet here for the last 30 minutes, but now a flip to freezing rain or maybe plain rain.