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Looks like we lost about 3"-4" snow depth yesterday.. Today is much colder but still melting somewhat..

Obviously heavily wooded areas keep the snow much longer than wide open spaces..

The sun rises towards my back yard but by lunchtime it's already directly overhead, it's the front of my property that takes a beating during the warmest part of the day..

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GetMap (17).gif

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Temps in the 30s with winds in the 10-20 mph range, stronger near
Lake Ontario, will result in a brisk afternoon across the region
though the sunshine is helping to take the edge off the chill in
most areas except east of Lake Ontario. The cooler air and lingering
low-level moisture is allowing light snow showers and flurries to
linger east of Lake Ontario for next couple hours. Tonight, colder
air remains with H85 temps -10c to -12c across the region. Weak
system tracks in from the upper Great Lakes and will combine with
already sufficient over-water instability to result in some lake
enhanced snow east of Lake Ontario mainly after late evening.
Forecast soundings where lake effect is persistent overnight
indicate at least a 6 hour period (03z-09z) where inversions lift to
5-7kft with good portion of lake convective layer in the DGZ. Most
model guidance not showing much qpf or snow, so increased both east
of Lake Ontario over the higher terrain. Snow totals later tonight
into Friday morning could reach at least 3 inches, if not even 5
inches locally if more favorable setup for lake enhanced snow
persists longer. This still falls short of CIPS analogs which would
point to low-end advisory amounts. Upper pattern in those analogs
looks a bit too amplified compared to what occurs tonight though.

StormTotalSnowWeb1 (19).png

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15 minutes ago, TugHillMatt said:

Looks like Oswego county got several inches last night. The colleague who lives in Oswego came to work with the remnants and said they had quite a bit.

D winter continues. Yesterday was a beautiful late winter day though.

I've learned that winter still has its share of surprises until we reach memorial day, for buffalo at least lol

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1 hour ago, TugHillMatt said:

Looks like Oswego county got several inches last night. The colleague who lives in Oswego came to work with the remnants and said they had quite a bit.

D winter continues. Yesterday was a beautiful late winter day though.

I don't think anyone in Oswego County got anything but maybe a trace to a dusting last night? 

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I don’t throw in the towel until St. Patrick’s Day. We’ve had some big snowstorms in mid March in recent years. After that I would take a big storm but snow generally melts faster than it falls. And as a point of reference, the record highs in Syracuse the last couple of days were set in 2017 (yesterday’s was 68) and we had a major storm in mid March. 

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Lake effect archives updated with both January events..

D_label (1).png

 

LAKE EFFECT STORM
January 17-20, 2021

Maximum Snowfall:  Lk Erie 35.5" (Springville 5 NE), 31.5" (Glenwood 1.5 SE)
                   Lk Ontario 20.0" (Redfield), 18.4" (Lacona 3.6 SSE)
Duration:  60-72 hours +/-
Flake Scale:  2 flakes **

After several weeks of uneventful weather, Western NY finally saw a return of 
Lake effect snow beginning Sunday evening January 17th.  The strongest bands 
occurred during the night time hours and took place for three consecutive 
nights (Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights), with lesser intensity during 
the day.

The first band set up well south of the city and affected the higher terrain 
regions southern Erie, northern Chautauqua, and northwest Chautauqua counties.   
This band was able to drop generally 4-8" overnight before the band weakened 
during the day.  Although some snow was still falling during the morning 
commute, it was also Martin Luther King Day.  Therefore, the lack of school 
buses and other business traffic lowered the overall impact from this part 
of the event.  

Lake effect snow ramped up again toward Monday evening with a fairly strong 
band occurring overnight and into early Tuesday morning.  This band was also 
centered a little further to the north and affected the Buffalo Southtowns.  
The hardest hit locations received about 5-10" from this part of the event.  
The band again weakened some during the day.

Finally, the band reared up for one last time Tuesday night and again 
generally hit the same areas impacted during the previous night.  This band 
was likely also the most intense of the three nights, with another 6-18"
falling across the region with snow rates at times reaching or briefly 
exceeding 2" per hour.

Storm totals over this three-day period were fairly impressive, with some 
locations accumulating 24-36" inches.  However, due to the long duration of 
the event together with 6–12 hour periods with little or no snow, even the 
most hard-hit areas only briefly exceeded a snowpack of 24", and most areas
had a snowpack that remained below 10". 

Meanwhile, areas East of Lake Ontario had a synoptic widespread snow event 
on Friday night into Saturday, January 16, followed by some lake enhanced 
snow Saturday night. In general, the area received about 2-4" from the 
synoptic portion of the event followed by localized 6-12" toward the south 
side of the Tug Hill Plateau. There was only light and sporadic lake effect 
snow from most of Sunday through Monday Night. During Tuesday however, lake 
effect snow quickly moved into the region.  A broad, single band generally 
focused over the Tug Hill Plateau through Tuesday night before moving south 
along the Lake Ontario shoreline early Wednesday.  Areas within the banding 
saw amounts reaching about 18". Although snow totals were impressive, due 
to the long duration of this event along with breaks, together with most of 
the snow occurring outside of the main commuting hours, this storm earns 
2 stars (**).
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E_label (1).png

Maximum Snowfall:  Lk. Ontario 18.2" (Constableville 5NW and Highmarket 2W) and 
                   17" (Constableville 2NW)
                   Lake Erie 9" (Little Valley) and 8.8" (Franklinville 3.5E)
Duration:  48 hours +/-
Flake Scale:  2 flakes **

Deep low pressure crossing Quebec on Thursday afternoon January 21st and somewhat
cold air flowing over eastern Lake Ontario helped increase lake effect snow 
especially toward Tug Hill region late afternoon on the 21st. Slightly cooler 
and more moist air then settled across the lower Great Lakes during the evening 
of the 21st which helped the lake effect increase especially off eastern Lake 
Ontario toward the Tug Hill region, with the snow even briefly expanding to as 
far north as Watertown and Fort Drum. After not much snow occurred since the 
afternoon of the 21st off Lake Erie, snow showers increased there as well during 
the late evening. As a couple mid-level disturbances crossed southern Quebec, the 
westerly flow lake effect off Lake Ontario ramped up considerably during the early 
morning hours of Friday January 22nd.  A very strong focused band of heavy snow 
impacted especially the Lacona to Pulaski areas in Oswego county eastward across 
the Tug Hill and over southern portions of Lewis county. Snowfall rates up to 2" 
per hour occurred in the heart of the band across the central and southern Tug 
Hill region, pummelling the COOP sites near Constableville and Highmarket with 
over a foot of snow by mid morning on the 22nd. Lake effect off Lake Erie was 
overall much more mobile/transient but a few stronger bands of snow did develop 
south of the Thruway early on the 22nd then settled across the Southern Tier 
before diminishing by daybreak on the 22nd. 

By this time, an arctic front from western NY across Lake Ontario helped shift 
the west winds to more northwesterly, which pushed the heaviest snow south of 
the Tug Hill region, but began to focus a few stronger bands of lake effect 
along more of the south shore of Lake Ontario from Niagara county to N. Cayuga 
and the lower elevations of Oswego county. These snow showers also impacted the 
Rochester Metro later on the morning of the 22nd with the visibility at the 
Rochester International Airport briefly dropping to one-half mile during heavier 
snow. The official observer at the Rochester airport tallied around 3 inches 
by midday on the 22nd.  Elsewhere, scattered snow showers producing brief lower 
visibility occurred over much of western NY to the Finger Lakes as the arctic 
front sinked farther southeast across the area. After a lull in the snow showers 
early on the afternoon of the 22nd, the arctic air flowing across the unusually 
wide open waters of the Great Lakes (ice free waters observed as far north as 
Lake Superior) began to set the stage for significant lake snows to develop 
south and southeast of Lake Ontario starting during the late afternoon hours 
on the 22nd.

After 3 PM on the 22nd a stronger band of snow began to take aim at eastern 
portions of Wayne, N. Cayuga and western Oswego county. Though the band waffled 
some into the early evening, it was nearly stationary for most of the time, with 
snowfall rates up to 2 inches per hour occurring for several hours. The band 
eventually expanded farther west over northern portions of Monroe and Orleans 
counties, along and north of NY Route 104. These stronger snow bands were being 
fed by upstream moisture from Lake Superior, Lake Huron and Georgian Bay by the 
time they crossed Lake Ontario. This allowed the bands to have staying power, 
with some hint of these snow showers reaching as far east as the Albany area by 
late evening on the 22nd. Eventually drier air working into the region started 
to diminish the intensity and width of the snow bands. However, by the wee hours 
of the morning on Saturday January 23rd, reports of 9 inches of snow were 
received from near Cato in N. Cayuga county and near Webster in northern Monroe 
county where the bands had persisted the longest. The lake effect snow showers 
continued through the rest of the morning hours across western NY, finally 
making it into northern portions of the Buffalo Metro by daybreak on the 23rd. 
One narrow, but intense band of snow impacted southern Orleans county, northern 
and eastern Genesee county, northern Livingston county and western Ontario 
county with 6+ inches of snow locally between 5 and 9 AM. It was also under 
this band that an impressive foot of snow piled up in short order over the 
higher terrain southwest of Honeoye in Ontario county. After this last heavier 
band of snow diminished, minimal additional snow accumulations occurred into 
the afternoon of the 23rd across the entire area as the bands continued to 
weaken.

Though this was a long lasting event lasting from the afternoon on January 21st 
to the morning of January 23rd and some areas across the Tug Hill region east 
of Lake Ontario saw a foot and a half of snow, the snow was relatively fluffy 
and winds were not that strong, limiting the overall impact. The primary time 
of heavier snow across portions of the higher population areas such as the 
Rochester Metro didn’t occur until the waning hours of the Friday morning and 
Friday evening commutes, so again the impact was lower. Therefore, despite some 
high snow totals off Lake Ontario even for areas in Monroe, Ontario, Wayne and
N. Cayuga counties that had not seen much lake effect this season thus far, 
this event earns two stars **. 
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3 hours ago, rochesterdave said:

Memorial Day is pushing it. I’d say until mid May. But it definitely ain’t over at the end of February. 

Well i have video of driving in white conditions from lake effect snow from last year mid may, not the normal but my grandma always said never plant before memorial day weekend which I still go by

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