SouthBuffaloSteve

Another muted event with the lake out of play. Man if we would have gotten into this pattern a month sooner we would have mountains of snow in BUF metro. Frozen lake and we still have a band trying to setup through the city. This is I believe the third time in the past two weeks we have had a WSW-SW flow setup but no lake to work with... .

Quite a battleground of temps this evening... .

Nothing like a good February downpour... .

...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IN EFFECT UNTIL 10 PM EST THIS EVENING... * WHAT...Lake effect snow. Total snow accumulations of 3 to 5 inches in the most persistent lake snows. Winds gusting as high as 55 mph. * WHERE...Wyoming, Chautauqua, Cattaraugus, and Southern Erie counties. * WHEN...Until 10 PM EST this evening. .

This was from 4 days ago of the two areas of open water. I really thought the area along the south shore would have closed up with the ice shifting west to east. .

Both 4 and 7 made adjustments for suspected areas of open water and wow! Showing a band over the northtowns around lunch time then intensifying and dropping through the metro for the PM rush... Near Blizzard conditions possible... Only thing is neither model picked up the current band over the southtowns. Both just showed one setting up over the northtowns around noon - 1pm. Might as well be forecasting this with a blind fold on. No one has any idea where these open pools are right now and if you don’t know that forget even trying to predict where these bands will be... .

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Big time ice flows escaping Lake Erie and heading down the Niagara River right now... .

Well if we are going to see something off Lake Erie it should fire up in the next 1-2 hours. .

Despite the ice cover still looking at a pretty impressive seiche on Lake Erie this morning... Have a feeling the ice boom has probably been topped at this point. Buffalo Rise... Toledo Drop... .

Northeast winds will do that. Crazy how fast the temps are rocketing! Look at that difference north side of the city compared to the south side! .

Out this way? Hovered in the low 30s most of the day with some freezing drizzle. Once the rain moved in we bumped up to the mid 30s and now with the southerly down slope wind firing up we are climbing the temperature roller coaster to almost 60 in the next few hours. All that to see it crash back into the 20s by sunrise with some flurries. Gotta love upstate weather.

NAM thinks there is some open water in play as well. Trying to setup a band over the city for a couple hours. Not spitting out more than an inch or two but still interesting to see the lake still putting up a fight! .

Those winds tomorrow night are gonna shift the lake ice all around... maybe open up a few spots for some activity off Erie as well once the front passes and temps crash? I’m also curious about this spot on the north shore. Clouds have blocked the MODIS view since Monday but that last shot showed a nice area of thin slush ice or possibly no ice? Considering we’ve stayed on the warmer side since this shot one would assume it could still be in play even though the charts are showing a solid ice pack? .

Some pretty hefty flooding in West Seneca today on both Caz and Buffalo Creeks. Possible record crest on Buffalo Creek. The gauge hasn’t reported in 4 hours so it’s either damaged or washed away. Many homes were evacuated around Union and Indian Church area. Ouch who would leave a car like that parked there? Caz Creek spent most of the day jammed up in West Seneca from the high school back to Southgate Plaza. Minor flooding was seen along Seneca St and at the Soccer Park. The ice broke and next jammed up under the I90 overpass where it flooded a local gym destroying dozens of vehicles. The water was seen getting all the way up and onto Seneca St at the Harlem intersection... The jam slid a little further and is now locked up in Caz Park. It’s really starting to fill up the flood controls in the park quickly. Need some day light these night pictures stink! .

Couple shots from along Caz in West Seneca. Minor flooding along Seneca Street. Tonight should be interesting as the ice sheet in South Buffalo has not yet moved and it appears there is now a lot of ice and water heading down stream. .

Ughh... I missed the West Seneca jam breaking by 10 minutes. It’s all headed up into South Buffalo now. .

Over 13’ and still rising. Stuck at work so no creek watching today but from what I saw earlier the levels in SB were not rising yet. The gauge is located near Ridge and OP roads so if it’s rising there jam has to be somewhere near the high school in WS. Was thinking the lack of rain might lessen some of the flood potential but actually I think that could worsen the jamming as the water will not be coming downstream as forcefully and could keep piling up... Could be an interesting evening. .

Ice Jam Time... .

13.3” storm total here... not a bad event I guess. Shafted most of the time stuck between those two bands so this one really doesn’t rank that high on my most memorable list. I know the folks north and south might say different. Just really wonder how much more impactful the event would have been if we had a little more open lake to work with. Sure those little open pools produced some nice bands but the fact we had an almost 48 hour stretch of SW to WSW winds an open lake would have ramped up a single 3-4”/hr death band with the temps we had... That would have made it like ‘85 or even worse.. Been a heck of a 2 week stretch though. From a well below normal winter to the 4th snowiest January on record. Now it’s time to thaw and FLOOD next week. Have some big concerns about the Buffalo area creeks next week Tuesday-Thursday. Not only the warmup, snowmelt, and rain, but the fact our last thaw setup two ice jams on Caz and Buffalo creeks that never had a chance to clear out before being frozen into place with this deep freeze. If weren’t not gonna keep the snowpack let’s be done with winter and flip into an early spring. Past two weeks filled my snow void. .

Moving back in now! What a contrast this morning very defined band... .

Another 1.3” overnight. 12.5” storm total. .

That northern band is about to lock in right over the metro and SB out to just south of the airport. Don’t see why this couldn’t lock in for hours. Both bands looking great.

It’s almost another 20”+ storm at KBUF. I’ll have to see how 24 hour total shakes out but could be yet another top 20 single day snowfalls for us in less than a week. That’s crazy! Public Information Statement Spotter Reports National Weather Service Buffalo NY 1037 PM EST Wed Jan 30 2019 ********************STORM TOTAL SNOWFALL******************** LOCATION STORM TOTAL TIME/DATE COMMENTS SNOWFALL OF /INCHES/ MEASUREMENT NEW YORK ...Erie County... Buffalo Airport 19.4 1000 PM 1/30 NWS Office Kenmore 17.0 420 PM 1/30 Trained Spotter 3 WSW Elma 12.9 400 PM 1/30 CoCoRaHS Hamburg 10.8 600 PM 1/30 Public Clarence 10.0 1000 PM 1/30 Amateur Radio 3 SSW Marilla 9.0 930 PM 1/30 Trained Spotter Alden 4.5 430 PM 1/30 12-hr total ...Monroe County... Rochester Airport 1.5 700 PM 1/30 ASOS

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