Erie County alone in the no-snow zone — this time
Wide-ranging storm expected to miss most parts of Erie
From Cleveland east to Utica, three dozen counties faced National Weather Service lake-effect or winter-storm alerts Friday night. Only one was not — Erie County.
How’s that for a change? Metro Buffalo and northern Erie County were expected to escape unscathed from an impressive lake-effect storm fueled by northwest winds pulling moisture from lake waters as far away as Lake Superior, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Steve McLaughlin.
“This is pretty abnormal for this time of year,” McLaughlin said.
Areas off Lake Ontario from Niagara County to Rochester were expected to get several inches of snow. Lake Erie was expected to serve up several inches of snow for southern Erie County, with some sections of the western Southern Tier bracing for a foot or more.
Meanwhile, a 20-mile or so “snow amnesty zone” encompassing metro Buffalo and much of central and northern Erie County was anticipating no snow — provided the wind direction didn’t shift a few degrees.
“We’re the oasis at this time,” McLaughlin said of metro Buffalo.
In late fall, the winds typically come from the west or southwest, gathering moisture from Lake Erie and dumping it into the Southtowns and sometimes the metro area.
That’s just what happened eight years ago last Thursday, when afternoon lake-effect snowsqualls fed by a southwest wind stalled for hours over Buffalo, dumping 25 inches of snow on the city, stranding rush-hour motorists in their cars.
When cold northwest winds pass over the warm lake waters, however, areas southeast of the lakes get slammed with lake-effect snow.
“This [northwest wind] is incredible for November,” McLaughlin said. “This is deep February stuff — it’s a midwinter pattern.”
But as is usually the case, by February the lake-effect snow has tapered off because the lakes are frozen over.
The late-fall arctic blast isn’t just affecting the Great Lakes. Heading south for the winter is taking on an entirely new meaning.
Virginia Beach, Va., saw snow Friday — as did Raleigh-Durham, N.C. Temperatures were expected to dip into the 20s in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and Savannah, Ga., overnight. Even northern Florida was under a hard freeze warning through this morning.
This week has been a virtual tale of two winters across Western New York.
Metro Buffalo has picked up little accumulation, while areas in the western Southern Tier have been transformed into a winter wonderland by the lake-effect snow machine.
A foot of snow had already fallen in Mayville by noon Friday. And that’s on top of the 22.8 inches that covered the village earlier in the week.
In South Dayton, Cattaraugus County, Friday’s snowfall added to the 30 inches that fell Tuesday.
And ski resorts in Ellicottville were tickled white this week after 30 inches fell there.
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