lakeeffectkid383

I was a little confused too why they went Winter Storm Warning for Southern Tier but Lake Effect Snow Warning for Northern Erie.

7-17” for Northern Erie, 11-22” for Southern Erie County.

Yep 06z models look much more W to WSW. In fact the 06z RGEM barely gets the band to the Southtowns it mostly stays over far southern Erie into Ski Country. This is why I don’t get my hopes up until we’re within 24-36 hours. So much can change once we’re in range of the mesos and they usually do. definitely not looking like anything major but at least we’ll have our white Christmas.

Lowered totals significantly across the board. Only 7” in BUF with the high end being 10”.

Virtually the same on 00z GFS wrt lake effect.

Agreed. The 84 hr the NAM and RGEM both still have the event going which is 7 AM Sunday. Rgem did back off quite a bit compared to 18z run as Tim stated.

That’s how I am. I don’t really care if my house gets hit, just want a solid band somewhere to chase. GFS is rolling now.

Haha I only joke. Somewhat. I would have no problem what so ever chasing the event if it ended up over the Southtowns. I’d even offer help him shovel, before the Scotch of course lol.

I’d be totally fine with a more Westerly or WSW flow that nails you off Ontario and BuffaloWeather off Erie. I can watch him have to shovel/snowblow his whole driveway on his new Nestcam while I have a glass of Scotch and sit by the fireplace

Definitely not, just stating my observations and opinions lol.

Not really, as the storm moves N and NE there’s a trough being left behind towards the upper Great Lakes keeping the winds backed more than a storm that would usually be in that location of Canada. Not saying it’s right though lol.

It’s just one tool in the tool chest. It has some value, but about as much as the rusted pair of pliers in the bottom of the tool chest. This is why we need to get in closer range to the higher resolution models can get a better handle on the many mesoscale features that will be in play for this event. You have the track of the storm which will ultimately determine the exactly wind direction, thermal troughing, convergence all coming into play and even a 12k model can’t pick up all of those subtle features. If I was the NWS I would wait until after tomorrow’s 12z runs at the earliest to issue warnings. A lot can happen between now and then and even that would give a solid 36-48 hour lead time before the meat of the event starts to get going which is plenty even for the holiday.

Good point about possible convergence keeping it from going as far north as NT and Lockport. A fine run to me IMO. No better no worse than the last run.

Just saw this post. Big time bummer. That model was usually way overdone with QPF but I found it often had a good handle on the placement of the bands especially on SW flow events. Do you know of any other good mesoscale models like that run out of any other WFO?

It’s literally almost identical wrt band placement. If anything the band is a bit north of 18z run at same time frame moving into metro.

The 18z run had the exact same timing on the band. South of Buffalo still at 1pm and north of it by 4pm. Only difference is the storm is a bit west so the band ends up a little further to the north of BUF than 18z run.

Band is already north of the city in Niagara County by 4pm Friday lol. Do agree there’s almost nothing synoptically for anyone in NY State besides an inch or two in Chautauqua County.

00z NAM jackpots Niagara County. Winds back even further as the storm heads a little bit further NW over Ontario. Certainly an option on the table at this point.

More like 60 hours til the lake effect starts and that’s a long long time in model land for lake effect. We need to be within 24-36 hours before I feel confident about anything. I want to see the 3k NAM and even the BTV WRF and the WRF NMM and ARW and that’s not until we’re 36-48 hours out except for the 3k NAM at 60 hrs. The mesoscale models will be far more useful than the globals. The global show the general placement and the potential but the mesoscale models will fine tune all the details but we’re not even within range of those yet. I feel like it seems like it’s taking forever to get to the event because they issued the watch so dang early lol so we’re all waiting for them to turn it to a warning but it’s taking forever.

Dude, just stop.

I’m pumped but there’s still 48-60 hours till go time. Anything can happen. We’ve gotten burned too many times to be all in this far out. I’ll feel better if things still look like this tomorrow at this time. A little shift west and we get almost no synoptic snow and the flow is even more SW and the band ends up from NT to Lockport with a quick transition through the metro into the Southtowns. A little shift east and yeah we might get an inch or two more synoptically but winds land up more Westerly and jackpots Southern Erie instead of metro BUF. We need this storm track to line up perfectly to get a 240 degree flow right into BUF. That being said I’m happy that we at least have something to track and there should be a solid lake effect band somewhere in Erie/Niagara County.

When did you move to Hudson Bay? Kidding. Lol

There ya go Wolf you cash in and so does BUF haha!