BuffaloWeather Posted December 18, 2014 Author Share Posted December 18, 2014 Sleet has turned to snow, visibility 1-2 miles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MillvilleWx Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 RAWR! It's a beauty Buffalo. That would be one heck of cold front through the region. Not often you see a sub 970 over the Lakes. 1040 Highs yes, 962 Lows not so much haha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuffaloWeather Posted December 18, 2014 Author Share Posted December 18, 2014 It's a beauty Buffalo. That would be one heck of cold front through the region. Not often you see a sub 970 over the Lakes. 1040 Highs yes, 962 Lows not so much haha Crazy man! I do enjoy your posts. Should be a fun one to track the next week where ever it ends up going. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MillvilleWx Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 Crazy man! I do enjoy your posts. Should be a fun one to track the next week where ever it ends up going.Thanks man. Same for you and pretty much everyone in here too. You guys have a lot of knowledge for the meteorological picture in this region. I learned a lot about LES because of this subforum. I knew almost nothing before. I'll always try to pop in and comment if something is going on. Let's hope the rest of winter keeps on delivering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buffalo Bumble Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 Elevation FTW today. I drove down Rt. 219 en route to State College late this afternoon. Highest elevation right after the Colden exit had heavy snow with a fresh few inches. Drop down a couple hundred feet and it was mainly wet snow with no accumulation all the way through Ellicotville. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuffaloWeather Posted December 18, 2014 Author Share Posted December 18, 2014 Elevation FTW today. I drove down Rt. 219 en route to State College late this afternoon. Highest elevation right after the Colden exit had heavy snow with a fresh few inches. Drop down a couple hundred feet and it was mainly wet snow with no accumulation all the way through Ellicotville. Yeah, it's been snowing all night but only 1/2 inch on the snowboard. It accumulated more on the grass as it is almost fully covered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuffaloWeather Posted December 18, 2014 Author Share Posted December 18, 2014 Awesome write-up by the BUF NWS. http://www.erh.noaa.gov/buf/climate/bufholidays/BUFFALO/Christmas.htm http://www.erh.noaa.gov/buf/climate/bufholidays/ROCHESTER/Christmas_ROC.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buffalo Bumble Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 Awesome write-up by the BUF NWS. http://www.erh.noaa.gov/buf/climate/bufholidays/BUFFALO/Christmas.htm http://www.erh.noaa.gov/buf/climate/bufholidays/ROCHESTER/Christmas_ROC.htm This was very surprising to me for BUF: "IT HAS SNOWED ON 89 OF THE PAST 127 CHRISTMAS DAYS". Rare not to have at least some flakes in the air on Christmas day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuffaloWeather Posted December 18, 2014 Author Share Posted December 18, 2014 This was very surprising to me for BUF: "IT HAS SNOWED ON 89 OF THE PAST 127 CHRISTMAS DAYS". Rare not to have at least some flakes in the air on Christmas day. Yeah it snows on 70% of christmases, pretty incredible stat tbh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syrmax Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 Awesome write-up by the BUF NWS. http://www.erh.noaa.gov/buf/climate/bufholidays/BUFFALO/Christmas.htm http://www.erh.noaa.gov/buf/climate/bufholidays/ROCHESTER/Christmas_ROC.htm The Christmas 1978 storm was special. Family all together, football playoffs, big storm that was poorly forecasted. We ended up w/ ~16-18" in the hills near BGM. The best part of this storm was that it was truly a Christmas miracle for snow lovers. Obviously, no internet, your only weather sources were TV Mets and the NWS text crawler at the bottom of the Channel Guide and your own observational skills. A few days prior, a snowstorm was forecast....which over the next day or two morphed into a mix and then by Christmas Eve morning, the forecast was basically a brief start as snow and then turn to rain. Blech. But how sweetly wrong it was.Started snowing in the late afternoon of 12/24...what became apparent was that NWS had it really wrong as it never changed to rain and temps stayed in upper 20s, to near 30 during the storm, IIRC. Snow totals blew through every new range that was forecasted during the storm. As the snow accumulated NWS upped their forecast every few hours and we drank to their being wrong yet again! I remember my late father commenting on the northeast (and not east/southeast as forecast) wind direction around midnight, with like 10" on the ground, and our rear wheel drive station wagon stuck on a hill attempting to get to midnight Mass. Adding to the madness was my 80 y.o. german grandmother in the car who insisted on going if we were. Not sure if she was cursing or praying in German, you could never tell sometimes.... It was also my first experience with Thundersnow, which happened as my brother and I pushed the station wagon while we laughed at my Father who was behaving like George Kennedy in the movie Airport - chewing a stogie and barking orders while trying to get a stranded 707 off the runway. All in all it was great fun and better than the Albany 2001 XMas 24" Bomb, for personal reasons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuffaloWeather Posted December 18, 2014 Author Share Posted December 18, 2014 The Christmas 1978 storm was special. Family all together, football playoffs, big storm that was poorly forecasted. We ended up w/ ~16-18" in the hills near BGM. The best part of this storm was that it was truly a Christmas miracle for snow lovers. Obviously, no internet, your only weather sources were TV Mets and the NWS text crawler at the bottom of the Channel Guide and your own observational skills. A few days prior, a snowstorm was forecast....which over the next day or two morphed into a mix and then by Christmas Eve morning, basically a brief start as snow and then turn to rain. Blech. Started snowing in the late afternoon of 12/24...what became apparent was that NWS had it really wrong as it never changed to rain and temps stayed in upper 20s, to near 30 during the storm, IIRC. Snow totals blew through every new range that was forecasted during the storm. As the snow accumulated NWS upped their forecast every few hours and we drank to their being wrong yet again! I remember my late father commenting on the northeast (and not east/southeast as forecast) wind direction around midnight, with like 10" on the ground, and our rear wheel drive station wagon stuck on a hill attempting to get to midnight Mass. Adding to the madness was my 80 y.o. german grandmother in the car who insisted on going if we were. Not sure if she was cursing or praying in German, you could never tell sometimes.... It was also my first experience with Thundersnow, which happened as my brother and I pushed the station wagon while we laughed at my Father who was acting like George Kennedy in the movie Airport - chewing a stogie and barking orders while trying to get a stranded 707 off the runway. All in all it was great fun and better than the Albany 2001 XMas 24" Bomb, for personal reasons. What an incredible story. The stories like this are what make weather so much fun, especially around the holidays. Just being together with family, no where to go, eating/drinking/exchanging presents...Just watching the snow fall and impossible to travel anywhere. Sit back by the fire, have a nice drink, share stories. Ahh the memories! I have quite a few stories from Dec. 1995, Nov 2000, Dec 2001, Oct. 2006, Dec. 2010, Jan. 2014 and Nov. 2014. I will never forget those memorable events here in WNY. This story is why I hope we are never able to predict the weather completely though. I would hate knowing how everything is going to unfold before it happens. That's what I love the most about LES, it's just unpredictable compared to synoptic events (usually). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ottawa Blizzard Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 How far is that drive on the norm? Generally about 1 hour, 15 minutes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ottawa Blizzard Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 It's a beauty Buffalo. That would be one heck of cold front through the region. Not often you see a sub 970 over the Lakes. 1040 Highs yes, 962 Lows not so much haha One possibility is that this starts out as heavy rain for Toronto, Buffalo and Kitchener (Ontario) on Christmas Eve, then turns to snow on Christmas morning which would be awesome. Does anybody here remember Christmas 1979? Apparently it was a washout across the region. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuffaloWeather Posted December 18, 2014 Author Share Posted December 18, 2014 One possibility is that this starts out as heavy rain for Toronto, Buffalo and Kitchener (Ontario) on Christmas Eve, then turns to snow on Christmas morning which would be awesome. Does anybody here remember Christmas 1979? Apparently it was a washout across the region. You can use this website to see the data for any day http://www.nws.noaa.gov/climate/xmacis.php?wfo=buf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syrmax Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 One possibility is that this starts out as heavy rain for Toronto, Buffalo and Kitchener (Ontario) on Christmas Eve, then turns to snow on Christmas morning which would be awesome. Does anybody here remember Christmas 1979? Apparently it was a washout across the region. Yeah, I sort of recall Christmas 1979 as being payback for the previous year's good fortune. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuffaloWeather Posted December 18, 2014 Author Share Posted December 18, 2014 This website is better Ottawa http://www.nrcc.cornell.edu/# Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSUmetstud Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 it's probably going to be too warm in the wake of that storm to get heavy les. It would give us a white christmas, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CNY_WX Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 The Christmas 1978 storm was special. Family all together, football playoffs, big storm that was poorly forecasted. We ended up w/ ~16-18" in the hills near BGM. The best part of this storm was that it was truly a Christmas miracle for snow lovers. Obviously, no internet, your only weather sources were TV Mets and the NWS text crawler at the bottom of the Channel Guide and your own observational skills. A few days prior, a snowstorm was forecast....which over the next day or two morphed into a mix and then by Christmas Eve morning, the forecast was basically a brief start as snow and then turn to rain. Blech. But how sweetly wrong it was. Started snowing in the late afternoon of 12/24...what became apparent was that NWS had it really wrong as it never changed to rain and temps stayed in upper 20s, to near 30 during the storm, IIRC. Snow totals blew through every new range that was forecasted during the storm. As the snow accumulated NWS upped their forecast every few hours and we drank to their being wrong yet again! I remember my late father commenting on the northeast (and not east/southeast as forecast) wind direction around midnight, with like 10" on the ground, and our rear wheel drive station wagon stuck on a hill attempting to get to midnight Mass. Adding to the madness was my 80 y.o. german grandmother in the car who insisted on going if we were. Not sure if she was cursing or praying in German, you could never tell sometimes.... It was also my first experience with Thundersnow, which happened as my brother and I pushed the station wagon while we laughed at my Father who was behaving like George Kennedy in the movie Airport - chewing a stogie and barking orders while trying to get a stranded 707 off the runway. All in all it was great fun and better than the Albany 2001 XMas 24" Bomb, for personal reasons. I remember that storm very well, too. I was living in the Mohawk Valley (Little Falls) at the time. Like you I remember the forecast being for 2-4 inches of snow changing to rain on Xmas Eve. Our church's "midnight" mass was at 8 PM. As we entered the church the first flakes began to fall. Leaving church about an hour later about an inch had fallen. I was with my brother, his wife (who was pregnant), my niece and my younger sister. After church we visited a friend for about 3 hours. When we left we were shocked to find the accumulation was pushing a foot and it was snowing heavily. My brother's car was a rear wheel drive Oldsmobile wagon. The streets hadn't been plowed. If you're familiar with Little Falls you know that it is extremely hilly. We tried to make it to his house up a steep hill. We made it about half way up when we had to stop because another car was stuck in the middle of the street. Like you we experienced thunder snow. Eventually we gave up trying to drive to either his house or our parent's house and abandoned the car on Main St. and walked to our parents. The next morning after the snow had stopped the accumulation was about 18 inches. It was a nice Christmas present! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ottawa Blizzard Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 This website is better Ottawa http://www.nrcc.cornell.edu/# Thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syrmax Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 I remember that storm very well, too. I was living in the Mohawk Valley (Little Falls) at the time. Like you I remember the forecast being for 2-4 inches of snow changing to rain on Xmas Eve. Our church's "midnight" mass was at 8 PM. As we entered the church the first flakes began to fall. Leaving church about an hour later about an inch had fallen. I was with my brother, his wife (who was pregnant), my niece and my younger sister. After church we visited a friend for about 3 hours. When we left we were shocked to find the accumulation was pushing a foot and it was snowing heavily. My brother's car was a rear wheel drive Oldsmobile wagon. The streets hadn't been plowed. If you're familiar with Little Falls you know that it is extremely hilly. We tried to make it to his house up a steep hill. We made it about half way up when we had to stop because another car was stuck in the middle of the street. Like you we experienced thunder snow. Eventually we gave up trying to drive to either his house or our parent's house and abandoned the car on Main St. and walked to our parents. The next morning after the snow had stopped the accumulation was about 18 inches. It was a nice Christmas present! Wow, another similar experience that night! You bring up a good point...it being Christmas eve, and not much, if any, snow predicted...nothing was plowed. That plus the hills in Vestal NY, and rear wheel drive 1970s vehicles, made for much more driving "entertainment" back then. My parents lived on a hill in a development so one of our savage amusements was always to see who couldn't make it up the hill during snowstorms. It was not unusual back then to see people unable to make it up the hill and just abandon their cars and walk the rest of the way home....of course going back the next morning and digging their plowed in car out couldn't have been much fun. We would help out when we could. Fun memories of a bygone time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CNY_WX Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 Wow, another similar experience that night! You bring up a good point...it being Christmas eve, and not much, if any, snow predicted...nothing was plowed. That plus the hills in Vestal NY, and rear wheel drive 1970s vehicles, made for much more driving "entertainment" back then. My parents lived on a hill in a development so one of our savage amusements was always to see who couldn't make it up the hill during snowstorms. It was not unusual back then to see people unable to make it up the hill and just abandon their cars and walk the rest of the way home....of course going back the next morning and digging their plowed in car out couldn't have been much fun. We would help out when we could. Fun memories of a bygone time. We learned some good winter driving techniques back then. When approaching a snow covered hill you tried to build up as much momentum as possible keeping your foot on the gas hoping that you could make it to the top before your tires started to spin. If you lost that momentum you were sunk. You either backed down the hill and tried again or left your car where it stopped. They didn't keep streets as clean as now. As a kid we used to be able to go sledding right down our neighborhood streets with our Flexible Flyer sleds! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syrmax Posted December 19, 2014 Share Posted December 19, 2014 Well, looks like a pattern change is coming, although that doesn't guarantee snow, outside of LES in the usual locations. Who knows, maybe we'll see the sun again briefly on Christmas Day after the deluge blows through and we dryslot! It's been awhile but we haven't had a winter where most/many of the significant storms end up being Cutters, maybe this is the season. We've had an unusual run of winters with most of the significant storms being coastals, and everybody thinks that's normal now. Maybe that's going to change. The younger ones here probably don't remembers many, if any, winters like that. NWP certainly hinting at this possibility with several mixed bag systems over the next few weeks. IMO WNY could be the favored location synoptically and for LES. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoenixny Posted December 19, 2014 Share Posted December 19, 2014 The Christmas 1978 storm was special. Family all together, football playoffs, big storm that was poorly forecasted. We ended up w/ ~16-18" in the hills near BGM. The best part of this storm was that it was truly a Christmas miracle for snow lovers. Obviously, no internet, your only weather sources were TV Mets and the NWS text crawler at the bottom of the Channel Guide and your own observational skills. A few days prior, a snowstorm was forecast....which over the next day or two morphed into a mix and then by Christmas Eve morning, the forecast was basically a brief start as snow and then turn to rain. Blech. But how sweetly wrong it was. Started snowing in the late afternoon of 12/24...what became apparent was that NWS had it really wrong as it never changed to rain and temps stayed in upper 20s, to near 30 during the storm, IIRC. Snow totals blew through every new range that was forecasted during the storm. As the snow accumulated NWS upped their forecast every few hours and we drank to their being wrong yet again! I remember my late father commenting on the northeast (and not east/southeast as forecast) wind direction around midnight, with like 10" on the ground, and our rear wheel drive station wagon stuck on a hill attempting to get to midnight Mass. Adding to the madness was my 80 y.o. german grandmother in the car who insisted on going if we were. Not sure if she was cursing or praying in German, you could never tell sometimes.... It was also my first experience with Thundersnow, which happened as my brother and I pushed the station wagon while we laughed at my Father who was behaving like George Kennedy in the movie Airport - chewing a stogie and barking orders while trying to get a stranded 707 off the runway. All in all it was great fun and better than the Albany 2001 XMas 24" Bomb, for personal reasons. Here is another one. I loved that storm. I was 11 years old and remember the weather forecast on channel 9 saying 2 to 4 then upping it as the night progressed. I think around 11 they had 3 to 5?? I also thought it was Stormy Meredith or Bud Hedinger doing the weather. My parents kept yelling at me to go to bed as I looked out at the light at midnight observing big, fat flakes and at least 6 by then on the ground. I think I measured 16" that morning(heavy slop) in the Town of Owasco. Great Christmas memories. Thanks for sharing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syrmax Posted December 19, 2014 Share Posted December 19, 2014 Here is another one. I loved that storm. I was 11 years old and remember the weather forecast on channel 9 saying 2 to 4 then upping it as the night progressed. I think around 11 they had 3 to 5?? I also thought it was Stormy Meredith or Bud Hedinger doing the weather. My parents kept yelling at me to go to bed as I looked out at the light at midnight observing big, fat flakes and at least 6 by then on the ground. I think I measured 16" that morning(heavy slop) in the Town of Owasco. Great Christmas memories. Thanks for sharing. Very cool. As @cny_wx pointed out...With today's technology, and our access to it, it would be hard for a storm of such magnitude to sneak up on us, or completely fool us. Which is sort of a shame losing the element of big surprise. Lake Effect can still do that though, which is one reason I enjoy it...not to mention the sometimes nearly continuous feed of "mood snow," much like today and at times over the past otherwise dreary week. You just don't get that east and south of here, or it's very rare. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syrmax Posted December 19, 2014 Share Posted December 19, 2014 Better hope the 00Z op GFS is wrong Cuz it shows temps probably into the 50s on Christmas Eve in a driving rain. Which isn't really the worst of it. The cold on the backside isn't really that cold, H850 Temps marginal for LES, so unless you're into windy conditions and power outages...but the run gets worse...it retrogrades the stacked low all the back to Saskatchewan so that by h204 the SE ridge gets pumped up and the next system drives right up the St Lawrence valley and re-torches everyone here, right after XMas. The mean trough that eventually gets set up over central Canada and US in the longer term...not exactly good unless you like seasonably cold followed by warm ups and rain. Beginning to look like wait till next year...which fortunately isn't all that far off. Or just wait till the next run! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuffaloWeather Posted December 19, 2014 Author Share Posted December 19, 2014 A STORM SYSTEM WILL STRENGTHEN RAPIDLY OVER THE GREAT LAKES REGION TUESDAY NIGHT INTO CHRISTMAS DAY. A WIDESPREAD RAIN IS EXPECTED FIRST FOR WESTERN AND NORTH CENTRAL NEW YORK...WITH VERY STRONG WINDS AND SNOW SHOWERS DEVELOPING AS COLDER AIR SPREADS INTO THE REGION LATER WEDNESDAY INTO CHRISTMAS DAY. THE SNOW AND HIGH WINDS ASSOCIATED WITH THE STORM MAY DISRUPT HOLIDAY TRAVEL. PAY ATTENTION TO LATER FORECASTS AS THERE IS STILL PLENTY OF UNCERTAINTY CONCERNING THE STRENGTH AND TRACK OF THIS SYSTEM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buffalo Bumble Posted December 19, 2014 Share Posted December 19, 2014 A STORM SYSTEM WILL STRENGTHEN RAPIDLY OVER THE GREAT LAKES REGIONTUESDAY NIGHT INTO CHRISTMAS DAY. A WIDESPREAD RAIN IS EXPECTEDFIRST FOR WESTERN AND NORTH CENTRAL NEW YORK...WITH VERY STRONGWINDS AND SNOW SHOWERS DEVELOPING AS COLDER AIR SPREADS INTO THEREGION LATER WEDNESDAY INTO CHRISTMAS DAY.THE SNOW AND HIGH WINDS ASSOCIATED WITH THE STORM MAY DISRUPTHOLIDAY TRAVEL. PAY ATTENTION TO LATER FORECASTS AS THERE IS STILLPLENTY OF UNCERTAINTY CONCERNING THE STRENGTH AND TRACK OF THISSYSTEM. Looks like a pretty good bet on a wound up system to our northwest on Christmas, but sensible weather impacts (other than wind) still seem up in the air. Gusty and mainly dry, or wind-driven periods of snow...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MillvilleWx Posted December 19, 2014 Share Posted December 19, 2014 Any of you guys asking for a kite for Christmas? Should be plenty of wind for the entire Northeast. All kidding aside, this looks to be one wound up mother that will affect the pattern later on. Should be fun to watch over Christmas time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schinz Posted December 19, 2014 Share Posted December 19, 2014 Looks like a pretty good bet on a wound up system to our northwest on Christmas, but sensible weather impacts (other than wind) still seem up in the air. Gusty and mainly dry, or wind-driven periods of snow...? I'd bet on the former rather than the latter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuffaloWeather Posted December 20, 2014 Author Share Posted December 20, 2014 Cleveland Nws. The lake temp is 39 but half of it has temps from 40-45 still so we might be able to see some decent lake effect or lake enhanced snow on Xmas depending on track. WHICHEVER MODEL YOU BELIEVE FORECAST IS STILL THE SAME. RAIN ON WEDNESDAY CHANGING TO A MIX OF RAIN AND SNOW WEDNESDAY EVENING THEN TO SNOW SHOWERS OVERNIGHT. BY CHRISTMAS MORNING THE 850MB TEMPS PLUNGE TO -9C AND THE LAKE EFFECT SNOW MACHINE BEGINS. BUT WITH A SOUTHWEST FLOW BUFFALO WILL GET THE BULK OF THE LAKE EFFECT SNOW. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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