WNash

2 hours ago, lakeeffectkid383 said:

FULL sunshine in downtown Buffalo right now. I’m actually watching this from the 12th floor of Oshei children’s hospital as my daughter is sick and was admitted last night. 

My daughter was a patient there for five months when it first opened. She received wonderful care. The doctor and nurses brought her through some very scary weeks. I’m sorry your daughter had to go there, but I’m grateful that we have such a great hospital to take our kids if they get sick. I wish the best for your daughter and your family.

9 hours ago, Flying MXZ said:

The amount of complaining recently about not getting feet of snow in November is, um, interesting.  I know I've enjoyed the past several days, with maybe 3" total snowfall.  

KBUF is at 4.8” for November to date, against a 7.3” mean, so a little under 2/3rd of the average November snowfall.

However, the maximum snow depth to date has been 1”. This stuff has no persistence. I don’t live all that far from the airport (a few miles due west) and we are certainly well short of 4.8” for the month. But over the last couple of days, we have had light snow that is almost immediately replacing the continuous melt. If we have had 4.8” IMBY this winter, the melt must be continuous, because when I look at the video from our camera pointed that at the bird feeder which captures a still every 15 seconds, there has never been a moment when you couldn’t see the top half of the grass blades in our back lawn.

If we got 4.8 inches in 6 hour period, and the snow actually stuck around for a day or two, I think Buffalo area residents would be less disappointed by these light snow-full melt-light snow-full melt cycles that have constituted Buffalo’s winter to date.

I hate this set up so freaking much. I feel like we have seen this early season NW flow repeatedly in the last 3 years. Snow north and south while Buffalo gets a dry run of days, even sunny at times, and invariably we get a mild-up for a couple of weeks to put us even further behind the seasonal average. 
 

10 hours ago, TugHillMatt said:

 

 It's also too low in the northern half of Erie County...and for the Chautauqua Ridge. Many areas along the ridge average close to 200 inches. Also, the southern burbs of Buffalo definitely average more than 100 inches of snowfall.

But, like I said, all the maps miss out on some key microclimates.

I think it does a decent job of capturing the gradient between Ken-Ton and the 215-220 heading that seems to be the northern limit of steady lake effect bands in recent years. In fact, they could draw that line even further south - I don't have any issues with estimating roughly 75" as the average annual snowfall for the northern 1/3rd of Buffalo. You don't have to drive very far to the east to get to the airport, where LES sets up much more regularly on a heading that also crosses South Buffalo.

On the other hand, that map paints 80"-100" incorrectly over a broad area of the metro, including West Seneca, the southern half of Lancaster, most of Hamburg, and a good chunk of Orchard Park, and that's way off. If anything, the 120" line needs to be up around where the 100" line was drawn in the eastern part of the Buffalo metro. Frankly, it wouldn't surprise me if my mother-in-law in Gardenville got close to 2x the snowfall totals that I used to get in Parkside or that I get now in Kensington.

12 hours ago, rochesterdave said:

The key is in his name: BuffaloWeather. Lol. I’m the same way. We just gotta wait a little longer. 

Technically he's in Hamburg. I'm in Buffalo, and we have had 3-4 bursts of flurries/snizzle, but adding all those together might total a half inch of snow. The airport and nearby suburbs have 3+ inches this season, but Buffalo itself has been wet, not white.

23 hours ago, vortmax said:

Might as well be dry and mild while we do...loving that forecast. We don't want the real cold stuff coming down until late Nov thru Dec...

I tarped my tomato plants for last night and tonight. My Tempest registered 32.4F early this morning, and I expect we will definitely see sub-freezing temps tonight, but I'm determined to stretch my fresh tomatoes as close to Thanksgiving as possible.

11 hours ago, Blue Moon said:

I recently moved from Middle Tennessee, specifically a place about 30 miles SW of Nashville. I've lived in Tennessee my whole life so this will be quite the change.

Welcome to the non-downstate part of New York!

I moved from Nashville to Buffalo in 2012, and it was a big change in sensible weather. But I lived in snowy places both as a kid and as an adult, and I am old enough to remember some pretty good snowfalls in the Nashville area in the 70s and 80s (not to mention the 93 ice storm).

I don’t regret the move for a minute. Not only is the weather much more suited to my preferences, but I have found western NYers to be the most genuine and friendly people I’ve ever met. And Buffalo’s revival is real - when I first moved here, people were visibly shocked that I had left Nashville for Buffalo, but now they don’t think a thing about it.

10 hours ago, DeltaT13 said:

 

Incredible event.  I remember this one vividly, however it was a heartbreaker for me as a North Towner.  We were at my grandmas house in West Seneca when it began and the snowfall rates had to be 3-5"/hr.  This forced us to make a hasty departure and head home to North Tonawanda.   As usual, by the time we got home there was virtually bare ground...I was pretty used to this by that point in my life but I always hoped the bands would sneak a little further North.  Back then though, it was very hard to ever see a radar unless you got a glimpse on the weather channel so tracking it real time was almost nonexistent.  

My house was where the arrow is pointing  

This is the kind of storm that seemingly had a roughly 10 year return interval but hasn’t been seen in in 20+ years (with the exception of the one-of-a-kind October 2006 storm). I moved here in 2012, living in the northern half of the city - places that got buried by the 1995 storm, the six-pack storm, ‘77, and at least a storm a decade going way back in the Buffalo Blizzards book. I keep thinking we are going to get that monster storm every winter. Fingers crossed it’s this one.

6 hours ago, lakeeffectkid383 said:

Fascinating. How common is it to have tropical remnants cause a massive snowstorm? Even if it’s that far north. 

It wasn’t a massive snowstorm, but we moved from Tennessee to Buffalo as Sandy moved inland and cut to the north. I remember driving through some decent snow showers on and off between Cincinnati and Cleveland. (I also remember the miles-long caravans of utility repair trucks, rolling eastbound towards NYC/NJ.)

4 hours ago, winter_rules said:

I wish I kept statistics to back it up, but this summer definitely felt more hot, muggy, and wet than any summer I can recall in our area. It seems like if it wasn’t raining (often heavy), it was 80s-90s and super humid.  
 

 

Without question, August has seen brutal humidity. I am so glad to see the end of it.

4 hours ago, winter_rules said:

How wet is the ground out there?  Are you also having an extremely wet summer?

Not in the least - I’m in Buffalo, a stones’ throw from South Campus. We are in the lake shadow, and have missed most of the rain this summer.

1 hour ago, SouthBuffaloSteve said:

Here it comes…

We had a nice downpour for 15-20 minutes. My Tempest estimates that 0.45 inches of rain fell between midnight and 12:45, almost all of it between 12:10 and 12:30. Some decent lightning as well. Not long lived, but much better than the vanishing storms of the last few weeks.

4 hours ago, BuffaloWeather said:

Thanks for the compliment. I was really excited about those storms, I didn't get a drop of rain.

Same, absolutely disgusting. This is the most miserable weather we get IMO. I’d rather live through three months of those cold, damp springs that everyone hates because they get in the way of our great early summers rather than put up the grueling, soupy misery we get every few years in July and/or August. I spent about ten minutes doing yard work yesterday morning and I had to take a second shower. My three year old cried when I suggested we play outdoors - she has respiratory problems and this weather makes outdoor activity a challenge for her. What’s worse, it’s so continuously humid that my central a/c unit is having trouble keeping up, and it feel sticky inside and outside. Absolutely cannot wait for this to break for good.

35 minutes ago, vortmax said:

From a private company's perspective, I could see why the NFL is 'forcing' the issue. Lost revenue is a bit of an issue.

I’m usually not on the side of billionaires, but that revenue is what has given Cole Beasley $30 million in earnings, and is what is setting Josh Allen up for earning $40+ million per YEAR. Get the eff over yourselves, guys.

1 hour ago, TugHillMatt said:

Wouldn't surprise me...many people across PA and NY reported dewpoints in the 76-79 degree range 

I have a Tempest, and the Td at my site peaked at 75.3F at 5:50 PM. That's the highest dewpoint temp my station has recorded since it went live on Jan 5 of this year.

2 hours ago, TugHillMatt said:

Wow, Newark has officially hit triple digits at 101 degrees. @Syrmax, I found your new summer vacay spot. The friendly, pristine, pollution-free environs of NJ..............

I remember from living in NYC that Newark was always the hot spot. Big UHI, not far above sea level, cut off from maritime influences. Newark generally ran about 5-10F hotter than where I lived in central Brooklyn.

1 hour ago, BuffaloWeather said:

Arizona is insane 104 degrees during day to 35 at night, from Phoenix to flagstaff. 

It’s absolutely crazy how close the two cities are, considering that they feel as far apart as two separate planets. We made it from Flagstaff to Phoenix in about two hours, and didn’t go much over the speed limit.

They may be only 150 miles apart, but that mile of elevation makes an enormous difference.

19 hours ago, lakeeffectkid383 said:

That Hartford number is insane. That was almost 30% increase of their 40” a year average. 

Evidently they moved the reporting site to Mt. Tolland

19 hours ago, BuffaloWeather said:

No more complaining from Rochester ever again. The new 30 year normals. 

Buffalo was on a course about 8 years ago at this time to drop to a sub-90” 30 year normal. A couple significantly higher than average years and several average years kept us from that ignominy.

2 hours ago, BuffaloWeather said:

Storms weakened quite a bit as they moved onshore.

It’s officially spring if convective systems crap out right as they come off the lake into Buffalo 

3 hours ago, BuffaloWeather said:

I mean lake temps were in the 60s for the October storm.

Did high precip rates help the snow overcome the warm air near the immediate shore?

49 minutes ago, Thinksnow18 said:

I brought this up earlier today. This could have wide ranging effects that would crush the cherry crop, and possibly the apple and peach crop as well. This is a terrible time for this.

Not that commercial growers have an easy solution, but tomorrow afternoon I’m putting up a tarp supported by a couple ladders to protect our sour cherry tree. Hopefully another  pollen producer will make it through the freeze so we can get our fruit crop this year.

7 hours ago, wolfie09 said:

WNY could use a little rain..

I’m planning my garden irrigation for this summer, and I’m scaling my tubing for the contingency of severe drought.

2 hours ago, BuffaloWeather said:

I believe the UK variant is the primary strain around here right now. There is also another bug going around that me and my wife got. Today is day 12 with symptoms.

Yeah my understand is that B.1.1.7 has taken over in most of the east coast and Great Lakes states. I think they’re scaling up sequencing over the next month, so we should be able to have ongoing accurate variant data soon.

Sorry you and your wife are getting hit hard - are your symptoms mostly respiratory?

33 minutes ago, gmendevils8204 said:

Understood...but wouldn’t it stand to reason that we get more vaccines since our population is ten times greater?

Yes, you’re correct, but the relevant measure, assuming there are equally efficient distribution systems, is % of population vaccinated. The Canadian government placed pre-orders tor seven different vaccines. That hedge didn’t allow them to overcome the leverage the US has by its market size and power over pharma companies. In retrospect, the only move that would have allowed Canada to keep up would have been to bet big on one vaccine, negotiating a guaranteed large early supply in exchange for a higher price and bigger order.

The risk, of course, would have been getting a less effective vaccine (or worse, paying for a failed vaccine candidate). That was a risky choice, and Canada is falling behind because of their safer bet.

EDIT: just wanted to add that difference in market size has negatively affected Canadian consumers for generations, ever since improving technology allowed for mass production of consumer goods.