Wild Lake Effect Storm Starting In Western New York. Four Feet In Buffalo?

The scene near Buffalo, New York after an extreme
November, 2014 lake effect snowstorm. Similar scenes
are possible by this weekend in that region. 

 If you live in Buffalo, New York and you want to measure the snow that's coming, I hope you have a yard stick, or two. 

This will be one epic lake effect storm. 

Up to four feet of snow might fall between now and Sunday, the epicenter of the deepest snow could end being right in downtown Buffalo, or the airport just inland. Some forecasters are going with six feet, so who knows?

New York Gov Kathy Hochul was set early today to declare a state of emergency in western and northern New York. Schools districts in Buffalo and nearby towns have already announced no school on Friday. 

Beginning later today, all commercial traffic, you know, tractor trailers are such, will be banned from the New York State Thruway from Rochester to the Pennsylvania border. 

The Buffalo Bills are scheduled to play the Cleveland Browns in Buffalo on Sunday.  At this point the game is still on. That ought to be interesting. 

Everything is set up for this tremendous dump off of Lake Erie, and to an ever so slightly less extent off Lake Ontario near Watertown, New York. 

The heaviest lake effect snows usually come in the late autumn and early winter. That's when the lake water is still relatively warm. The contrast between that warm water and the cold winter winds off the lake create the lake effect snow bands. The water temperature of lakes Erie and Ontario are actually warmer than average due to the near record high temperatures in early November. This will give the snow squalls an added boost. 

More often than not, lake effect snows near Buffalo focus on the southern suburbs since west and northwest winds off the lake would largely miss Buffalo.

This time, cold air has plunged deep into the middle of the United States, which would bend the wind into a southwesterly direction over Lake Erie. That means wind would blow over the entire length of Lake Erie, offering the best set up for heavy snow.  Since the winds will be out of the southwest, that would direct the worst of the snow toward the city of Buffalo itself. 

Associated Press photo of the aftermath of an extreme
lake effect snowstorm near Buffalo, New York in 2014.
Similar scenes are possible with a new storm starting now.

The bands of lake effect snow will be so intense between now and Friday night at least that there will be a fair amount of lightning and thunder.  There's already been reports of lightning near Buffalo overnight. 

As the National Weather Service office in Buffalo notes, the northern edge of the intense snow bands  in this type of set up have a sharp cut off between incredible snow accumulations and practically nothing.  

I'm sure by the end of the weekend we'll have photos of Buffalo behind a wall of snow while the sun shines serenely just a couple miles to the north.  

The gradient in snow south of Buffalo won't be as sharp, but still, some southern suburbs won't see this as anything too unusual.

The Buffalo area does experience extreme lake effect storms from time to time. This one will be among the worst.   

This storm might end up being comparable to a lake effect snow event in November, 2014 that dumped as much as 88 inches of snow on areas near Buffalo.  That storm focused mostly on Buffalo's southern suburbs and the southern parts of the city. In that storm, Buffalo schools were closed for a week, and 26 people died, mostly from trying to shovel all that snow. 

Another lake effect blast on December 24-28 dumped 81.5 inches of snow on Buffalo. 

By the way, the record for one day snowfall in Buffalo is 33.9 inches set on December 10, 1995. 

Up toward Watertown, several feet of snow are expected in spots between now and Saturday because of this weather setup.

VERMONT EFFECTS

Since this is such a powerful lake effect storm in western New York, a little bit of the snow will blow all the way into Vermont. 

The orientation of the snow bands this morning was already sending a little snow all the way to southern Vermont today, so a few places there, especially in the mountains could receive an inch or so of snow. 

Another little disturbance will capture some of that lake effect snow and bring it across Vermont on Friday. Current forecasts call for very minor accumulations, less than an inch.  But I've seen us get surprised before in this type of weather scenario with a few inches. Especially in the mountains. The northern Green Mountains might do surprisingly well with snow between now and Saturday. That's not a promise, but something to keep an eye on. 

Other than these little bursts of snow, we'll be at risk for flurries and light snow showers anytime now through Sunday. 

A piece of the infamous polar vortex will sort of stretch briefly toward northern New England Sunday, so that day might end up being surprisingly cold with highs not getting out of the 20s. Otherwise, it will be colder than average, but not extreme for the next week or so.