Average Snow Doesn't Faze Vermont, And Epic Snows Don't Faze Buffalo Bills Fans.

Buffalo Bills fans "enjoy" their hometown team
winning during heavy lake effect snow squalls last Sunday

In case you haven't noticed, if you've gone outdoors to do anything in the past week or so, there's a good chance you encountered either falling snow or snow on the ground. Tis the season, right?  

The snowfall in Vermont had wound down this afternoon, though as of 3:30 p.m., there is still some steady snow falling along the immediate western slopes of the Green Mountains, and flurries elsewhere.

As expected, the western slopes made up for the lack of snow yesterday with a decent thumping this morning, with eight or nine inches of total snow along the western slopes of the Greens, with higher amounts.

And those eight inch reports came while it was still snowing at midmorning.

A couple places picked up a fairly impressive storm total, though overall this Vermont snow was pretty run of the mill by our standards.

Killington did pick up 19 inches of snow, and Rochester, Vermont had just a hair under 17 inches of fresh powder. Pomfret came up with a little under 16 inches of new snow.

It's damn nippy out there with the northwest breeze, and wind chills are near or just below zero. Actual temperatures will flirt with zero tonight.

Still, if you're brave enough, go outside and see if you can view the Geminid Meteor Shower. There will likely be a LOT of shooting stars, assuming the sky clears up enough where you are to see them. It will be a frigid view, but perhaps worth it. The best chance for relatively clear skies tonight in Vermont are between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Bit tough to see the action amid Lake Erie
snow squalls during the NFL's Buffalo
Bills home game last Sunday.

The snow we got, and the cold we're getting, is pretty routine for a Vermont December. So, too, was a snow blitz during last Sunday's NFL Buffalo Bills home game as torrents of snow poured off of Lake Erie.

Last Sunday, fans of the NFL's Buffalo Bills really got into the snow.

Those heavy snow squalls blew in off Lake Erie and smothered the stadium in snow during Sunday's game.

According to the Buffalo Bills website, eight inches of snow fell during the game, between 12:30 and 4 p.m. About 20 snow blowers were deployed during the game so players and everyone else could see sidelines, yard markers and hashmaks on the field.

In the end, it seemed not too many people minded the snow, since Buffalo ultimately won the game in overtime.

Here's one video scene from the snowy NFL game:



And here are a bunch of Buffalo Bills fans totally unfazed by the heavy snow:

Everlasting Snow Still On The Ground In Buffalo, New York In July

This afternoon, the temperature reached a steamy 90 degrees in Buffalo, New York.

That belies the city's exaggerated reputation as a snowy icebox except for this. In one vacant lot in the city, you could still find snow today. A fair amount of it, in fact.

Last November, Buffalo was slammed by an epic lake effect snow storm. 

Up to seven feet of snow fell in just a few days in parts of the Buffalo region, and of course, it's hard to figure out what to do with that much snow.

Wanna cool off on a hot summer day? Head
 to Buffalo to enjoy the remains of their immense snow pile
left over from last November.  

A lot of it was transported by the city off the streets to an abandoned lots. Up to 11,000 truckloads of snow ended up there. The piles were as high as the light poles.

A pile of snow that big takes a while to melt. A long while. In fact, some of it is still there, television station WKBN reports in a dispatch that has been picked up by the media across the nation.

As of this week, one of the leftover piles is about the size of two school buses parked end to end, and another pile is a bit smaller.  The larger pile is still about ten feet tall.

A layer of dirt covers the snow. It was picked up with the snow plows when it was being cleared from Buffalo streets in November. As the now melted, the dirt became more concentrated, and became a pretty thick layer on top of the snow.

That's insulating the snow from the summer warmth, so the snow is only melting very slowly. There's even grass growing on top of the dirt that covers the snow. So the snow pile in Buffalo is sort of a mini-Arctic permafrost.

New York State Climatologist Mark Wysocki said if there's enough dirt to insulate the snow, some could still be there when the snow starts flying again this coming late autumn.

I'm sure the fine residents of Buffalo, New York are just thrilled by the prospect of year-round snow.

The snow is slowly melting, mostly from the bottom. The dirt on top is insulating the snow from above, but the warmth in the ground spreads under the pile, melting it from the bottom.

Buffalo isn't the only city that had summer snow this year. Boston had its epic snows in January and February. 

After record snows hit Boston, crews removing the snow from city streets created a pile 75 feet tall. The last of that snow didn't finish melting away until mid-July.

Here's a time lapse of the snow pile in Boston melting through the spring and early summer. The video has a helpful red line on the image to show where the pile started at as it began to melt:

Buffalo Snow And "Frozen" Meet, In A Fun Way

Michele Marie Roberts belts out a Buffalo, N.Y. snowstorm
parody of "Frozen."  

I know, I know, snow in Buffalo, snow in Buffalo. It snowed in Buffalo.

But I can't resist posting the video, below, that puts a positive spin on the gazillion feet of snow towns near Buffalo, New York got this week.

Seems like it was made by a Chamber of Commerce type group out of the Buffalo region, but that's cool. Or frozen, as the case may be.

It was produced by Visit Buffalo Niagara and Paget Films. The singer is Michelle Marie Roberts, and Karen Leary came up with the concept.

At least people are keeping a pretty positive attitude about the snow. I'd certainly be grumbling. Or curled up in the basement, sobbing, if I got seven feet of snow if four days.

H/T to Ellen Cronin for pointing out this video to me:

Buffalo's Ongoing Disaster......

A plea for help in snowbound Hamburg, N.Y.
Photo by Mark Mulville,  Buffalo News.  

I know I've been harping on the epic lake effect snows near Buffalo, N.Y., but I can't help myself. This is one of the most amazing and strange weather events I've ever seen.

It's not over, either. Next up: The possibility of epic flooding. Yeah, 60 degree temperatures, high humidity and rain falling on seven feet of snow would do that. And it's in the forecast.

The amount of snow that fell continues to astound me and a zillion other people.  The big "winner," if you will is the town of Cowlesville, N.Y. which got 88 inches of snow over four days. Yep.  That's more than seven feet of snow and enough to bury an NBA player.

Close behind were West Seneca with 78 inches and Hamburg with 79 inches. That's about the normal snowfall for an entire winter, basically November to April, where I live in northwestern Vermont. And those towns got it in four days.

Now, as I said, it's looking increasingly likely the snow disaster near Buffalo will get worse. Rain, high humidity and very warm temperatures will conspire to melt the snow rapidly, leading to a potentially nasty flood. 

Under normal conditions, the next storm system coming through is pretty normal for November. Often, a strong, windy storm will howl northward across the Great Lakes, hauling a slug of warm, rainy weather through the Buffalo region with it.

The weight of the snow was too much for this building
in Hamburg, N.Y. Photo by Brian Connolly, Buffalo News.  

It pretty much happens every November.

But until now, it's always happened when there wasn't seven feet of snow, with a water content of four to six inches, sitting on the landscape, just waiting to melt and cause a bad flood.

At first, any rain that falls will soak into the snow. (Although it doesn't help matters that some areas will have to contend with some freezing rain today in the snow zone. Ugh.)

But as the snow continues to melt, the big snow banks will act as dams, holding water back from its normal drainage routes. That means that even houses that aren't right near flooding creeks and rivers could be in trouble.

If a house or other building is on the wrong side of one of these snow dams, it could flood.

Plus the storm drains are all buried under heaps of snow, so the water can't go there. Plus the leaves came off the trees just prior and during the storm, so the storm drains could be further clogged with leaves.

Even if a particular building doesn't get into the flood waters, there still could be trouble.
According to The Vane, the weather blog at Gawker:

"The biggest story we'll hear out of this snowmelt might not be the flooding, but rather the structural damage that comes from water-logged slush pressing up against the walls and sitting on roofs. We will see roof collapses from this event.

Box stores are notorious for suffering from structural failures when rain falls on a dense snow pack, but the amount of snow on residential roofs will also pose structural problems." 

It's already nasty out there. The Buffalo News said 13 people have already died from the storms, and at least 30 structures have collapsed from the weight of the snow.

I'm reluctant to blame every extreme weather event on global warming, and it does seem counter intuitive to blame a massive snowstorm on global warming, but Eric Holthaus, writing in Slate, makes a very plausible case for the hand of climate change in this disaster.

Lake Erie was warmer than usual, thanks to a mild autumn. The lake temperature has been going up gradually as the yearly average temperature rises in tandem.

Lake effect snows thrive on the contrast between warm lake water and the cold air above it. The warmer the water and the colder the air, the more intense the lake effect snow is.

The cold wave that helped spawn the extreme lake effect was stronger than you'd expect for mid-November. Record low temperatures were set all around the eastern United States.

As Holthaus writes, the jet stream has gotten a lot wavier in recent years and decades, and it has included sharper kinks southward at times, causing more intense cold waves to occur, interrupting the generally warmer conditions we've seen.

The jet stream connection to global warming, especially the fact that the jet stream has gotten more erratic, is still under study, but it's worth looking at.

So if global warming makes the lakes warmer, and makes a few of the cold spells, goes the logic, then lake effect snows can get stronger because of global warming.

I'm not sure Holthaus is right. It's hard to connect global warming to any single weather event. But like I said, his argument is plausible.

Whiplash Weather: Six Feet Of Snow To 58 Degrees?

Snow buried houses in West Seneca, N.Y. More snow
is falling on them today, threatening structural collapses.
Photo by Derek Gee.  

Early this morning, the lake effect snow nightmare in and around Buffalo was continuing.

At 4 a.m., Buffalo reported a thunderstorm with heavy snow as the lake effect snow band set up once again.

And once again, the snow band was slowly settling south, and is setting up over the towns just south of Buffalo today.

Great. They've already had five or six feet of snow. What's another couple of feet?

The weather drama near Buffalo is going to change dramatically this weekend, but I don't think it's going to be all that much fun.

There's already a lot of concern over structural failures because of the weight of many feet of snow on roofs. Already, there have been photos circulating on Twitter of show that had pushed against the sides of houses busting through windows and sliding glass doors.

Several feet of snow pressing against
this house in Cheektowaga, N.Y. busted
through a sliding glass door.  

By Sunday, it's supposed to rain out around Buffalo. That would add weight to the snow on roofs. Luckily, it now appears the rain won't be all that heavy.

However, temperatures by Monday will soar into the upper 50s across western New York.

That would set the stage for rapid melting and flooding in the areas that got a ton of snow. All that snow is blocking storm drains and such, too, so water will probably back up behind snow banks and snow drifts.

Definitely unpleasant to say the least.

Actually, a big chunk of the nation is about to experience weather whiplash.

Record low temperatures were reported over a wide swath of the nation, mostly east of the Mississippi River and south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Some cities reported the coldest temperatures for so early in the season.

It's about to warm up big time across much of the eastern United States, for a short while anyway. Places in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern states that were in the teens Wednesday morning will get into the mid 60s to mid 70s Monday.

An outbreak of severe weather, with strong thunderstorms and maybe a few tornadoes, is likely in parts of Texas and the Gulf Coast this weekend. Severe weather is in part a product of warmth and high humidity, so there you go.

I'm thinking maybe he should have removed
the snow from the top of his car.  

It'll get cold again next week in much of the nation.

In and near Buffalo, there are hints that the lake effect snow monster could crank up again toward Thanksgiving.

It's only November and we've already had a totally crazy winter. I'm beginning to get worried about what surprises December, January and February could bring.

Buffalo Lake Effect Disaster Worsens

A view of the Buffalo snow band from the air last night
Much of the city is in the clear, but to the south,
they're still locked in a solid wall of snow.  

I was pretty wowed last evening when I wrote my last update on the Buffalo, New York area lake effect snow blitz.

I'm even most in shock and awe mode this morning.

Worse, I'm getting really worried about people who live there. This is getting more and more life-threatening.

Already, at least four people have died in the epic snows, according to The Buffalo News. Three had heart problems and a fourth person died while trying to push a car out of the snow.

The persistent line of lake effect snow pretty much continued all last night. It might have weakened for a time but it came back on full blast early this morning.

There's a report that one town got as much as 76 inches of snow within 24 hours.

Look closely on the right hand side of this photo.
Snow is to the roofs of tractor trailers on the
New York State Thruway.  

If true, that's close to a record for 24 hour snowfall total from a lake effect storm, which according to weather historian Christopher Burt, is 77 inches in Montague Township on the Tug Hill Plateau of New York on Jan. 11-12, 1997.

The Tug Hill Plateau is near Lake Ontario, which is having its own problems with lake effect. Up there, it's three or four feet and counting.

The official record for heaviest 24 hour snowfall in the United States is
75.8 inches in Silver Lake, Colorado on April 14-15, 1921. The Montague Township record doesn't count because the measurements weren't taken as precisely as they should have been.

Anyway, it's extreme near Buffalo. And I'm worried about the structural integrity of the houses and other buildings creaking under the weight of all that snow.

True, lake effect snow tends to be light and fluffy, but it still has weight. A couple feet of lake effect snow is no big deal for most normal structures, but five, six, or seven feet and counting?  The weight must be tremendous.

Already, the force of the snow against one home busted down a door in the town of Cheektowaga. I'm sure we'll hear reports of roofs caving in.

Homeowners in West Seneca, N.Y.  opened their
doors and found this. 

Plus the snow is blocking air vents, which makes me worry about carbon monoxide poisoning in some buildings.

Additionally, nobody can leave their houses or respond to emergencies if the hard hit areas. If there's a fire, a heart attack, another crisis, what do you do.

Another 20 to 30 inches of snow (!!!!!) is due in the snowbelt area tonight and tomorrow.

Then, on Monday, it's supposed to warm up and rain in western New York. That rain will soak into the snow, add more weight and cause more structural problems.

If the temperature gets into the 50s and it rains fairly substantially early next week, I imagine flooding will be a huge problem as well.

The lake effect snow band has pretty much stayed in the same place as yesterday, causing widely varying snow totals. To the north, there's hardly been anything, then suddenly you get into feet of snow.

For instance, on the north side of Cheektowaga, N.Y. last evening, only two or three inches of snow had accumulated. On the south side of the same town, there was more than four feet of new snow. Same town!

Buffalo airport had received 3.9 inches of new snow as of last evening. Six miles away, Lancaster was at five feet of new snow and counting.

Here's how The Buffalo News describes the contrast. First we go to the hard-hit town of Lancaster:

"Plows could barely get in and out of the highway barns because of stranded cars. Paramedics ditched their ambulances in snowbanks in favor of snowmobiles to get to emergencies.

'It's like Beirut here,' said Jeffrey Bono, disaster coordinator for the Lancaster Volunteer Fire Corps. I kid you not. It's horrible.'"

Now let's follow The Buffalo News is just a handful of miles north of Lancaster to see what we find:

"But in Amherst, the skies were blue and the town's street crews were busy picking up fall leaves. And in Buffalo neighborhoods north of downtown, parents scratched their heads as their children cheered a snow day with less than two inches on the ground."

We'll probably have more on this unfolding weather disaster later today or tomorrow.  I'm finding myself saying this over and over again, with increasing frequency in regards to all these worldwide weather extremes:

I've never seen anything like it.

New York Lake Effect Storm Is Beyond Incredible. Five Or More Feet?!?!

Just try driving down this section of the New York State
Thruway near Buffalo, N.Y. today.  

This is one for the record books out in western New York.

Snow in narrow lake effect bands is piling up to ridiculous levels as the weather pattern is just perfect to cause extreme lake effect snow.

How extreme? Some of the hardest hit areas just south of Buffalo has more than four feet of new snow since last evening, and are expecting total accumulations of up to five or even six feet by later tonight.

As of 4:30 p.m, the highest snow total from the lake effect storm is 51 inches near Cheektowaga, N.Y. 

That's just one part of Cheektowaga. Another section of the same community has only had about two inches of snow. So depending upon where you are in one town, you had somewhere between two inches and four feet. Unbelievable.

Via Twitter, Tara Schwab took this photo
of a dog who is going to have a
challenging walk in Lancaster, N.Y.  n

I wouldn't even be totally surprised if somebody exceeds the 82 inches of snow in a town south of Buffalo in December, 2001, considered the deepest lake effect snow on record for the Buffalo area

According to The Buffalo News, travel in these areas is impossible, cars are stranded. The New York State Thruway near Lackawanna is closed, and even firefighters and ambulances are having trouble getting to people in need of help.

The winds set up just right so that they blew from southwest to northeast along the entire length of Lake Erie. That allowed the air keep collecting and collecting moisture on a long journey across the lake.

Lake Erie water temperatures are well into the 40s. Not swimming conditions, but relatively warm. The air a few thousand feet above the lake is near 0 degrees.

The contrast allows for a lot of instability, helping to focus all the lake moisture into clouds and snow, which gets dumped onto the shore near and south of Buffalo.

Via Twitter, Mike Schnorr gives us a
photo of a car that's not going anywhere
anytime soon.  

The winds also blew almost in tandem with the length of Lake Ontario, but not quite as perfectly, giving areas near Watertown more than three feet of snow.

These lake effect bands are only maybe five miles wide. The trouble is, they largely stayed in one spot, not varying much north or south.

Areas just north of Buffalo pretty much missed out on the action. While chaos was happening amid several feet of snow in the southern metro areas, municipalities a little to the north of Buffalo were out collected autumn leaves, because there was no snow in the way.

Just reading statements and forecasts from the National Weather Service office in Buffalo gives you a sense of the total chaos:

"Intense Lake Effect Snow Will Continue To Impact the Southern Half of the Buffal Metro Area:

At 3:29 p.m EST, National Weather Service doppler radar indicated a lake effect snow band capable of producing snowfall rates of 4 inches per hour or more...and visibility near zero at times. The sharp northern edge of this lake effect snow band extends from South Buffalo to Depew and eastward towards Darien and Alexander.

The southern edge of the band is hugging the Chautauqua County shoreline then extending inland across far northern Chautauqua County, the Boston Hills and Wyoming County.

Travel within the most intense portion of this band from South Buffalo into the nearby southern and eastern suburbs is impossible. Local officials report all roads are impassable and clogged with snow and stuck vehicles. Do not venture out within this area. If you live north or south of the band of snow do not attempt to drive into the affected area. You will become trapped."

But wait! There's more! The lake effect snow is expected to continue into tonight, then redevelop Wednesday night and Thursday. Here's more nightmarish verbiage from the National Weather Service in Buffalo:  

From The Buffalo News: Visibility isn't so great
in the intense lake effect snow bands. Add caption

"Accumulations: Snowfall rates of 2 to 4 inches per hour in the most intense portion of the band. Storm totals will reach three to four feet in many areas south of a line from South Buffalo to Batavia. Local amounts of five to six feet from Lackawanna to Lancaster to Elma from the first storm ending on Wednesday.

Additional accumulations of up to two feet in the second storm late Wednesday night through Thursday night in persistent bands. The heaviest amounts may again focus on the Buffalo southtowns."

Yep. That's right. After this lake effect monster is done, they get another one Thursday. And just for fun, here's what the Tuesday afternoon forecast for a town south of Buffalo looked like. I like how nonchalant the "total daytime snow accumulation of 27 to 33 inches" reads:

"Snow with areas of blowing snow. The snow could be heavy at times. Some thunder is also possible. High near 23. Breezy, with a west wind around 24 mph, with gusts as high as 36 mph. Chance of precipitation 100 percent. Total daytime snow accumulation 27 to 33 inches possible.

They just get around to the 33 inches at the end of the forecast? The snow could be heavy at times. Ya think?!?!

Here's a stunning time lapse video of the snow band as seen from just north of where it was burying towns under feet of snow. Looks like a solid curtain of snow:




Here's a homeowner showing us the scene outside his West Seneca, N.Y. home:

TV Weatherman Dies of Laughter During Boring Forecast

Judging from the graphic on the weather report during a WGRZ newscast in Buffalo, New York, the forecast indicated some pretty ho-hum weather for the following few days.

The VERY happy WGRZ weatherman
Andy Parker  

But weatherman Andy Parker was amused. Either by the boring weather or something (presumably) hilarious somebody said off camera.

The giggles, however, were in the Catagory 5 zone, and I wonder if any viewer actually figured out whether they should take an umbrellla with them or not.

Watch: