BuffaloWeather

Some great thundersnow as well

A couple of my favorite walks in the 2014 storm

These TV mets are so bad. I don't even watch them anymore. There are far superior Mets on these forums. How do you even come up with that number?

- EPO, - NAO. Fire up the lake machine.

They have the highest totals in nearly every synoptic storm. I haven't seen BUF or SYR beat them in a storm in years. It is odd to me. ...Monroe County... Rochester Airport 10.9 in 0700 AM 11/12 Other Federal 2 N East Rochester 9.0 in 0716 AM 11/12 Trained Spotter Rochester 4.7 NE 8.9 in 0705 AM 11/12 COCORAHS Honeoye Falls 1.7 NE 4.3 in 0700 AM 11/12 COCORAHS

Who exactly is measuring there snow? We found out from Erie PA that year it was a school bus driver with little to no training. In the last ASOS report it showed a heading of FED for Rochesters reading. Buffalo is the most accurate report due to Meteorologist actually doing the measuring at the airport where the NWS is located.

Half of Rochesters snow is 1:30-1:35 ratio fluff in N/NNW winds. Buffalo probably gets more QPF as snow then Rochester. Our typical lake effect is 1:15-1:25 ratio. Buffalos reporting station is located in a much worst spot then Roc and Syr are. South of Buffalo receives far more snow than anywhere near Rochester receives.

I always cheer for big time lake effect as travel bans allow me to get extra vacation time at work. I've only seen one synoptic storm do that. I think it was Jan. 2014. Getting paid to be at home during a blizzard is the greatest thing ever.

There should be a snowstorm in between one of these cutters.

+ PNA, -NAO and - EPO are the best combination of indices for our area, especially for lake effect.

From GL section: The look of a -NAO, -PNA and active sub-tropical jet would be very good for a lot of this sub-forum starting around the end of November (though intially may favor those in the northern half of it). If the EPO drops after day 10 as the ensembles are trying to hint at that would eventually shift the baroclinic zone far enough south for the Ohio Valley to also get more in the game for early December.

The Dec 2001 storm featured this type of low. The blocking is key to get this type of pattern. https://www.weather.gov/buf/lesEventArchive?season=2001-2002&event=B By about December 22nd, forecasters began to see signs of a significant change in the large scale weather pattern across North America. Advanced computer models were showing a blocking pattern developing over Greenland at upper levels of the atmosphere, forcing an upper level, closed low to develop and strengthen over the Upper Great Lakes. Forecasters on the eastern Great Lakes are familiar with this synoptic pattern, because it is conducive to the heaviest lake effect snows in western and central New York. The low was forecast to trap enough cold air from northern Canada to produce heavy lake snows. Even more alarming was the forecast that the upper low would move little, if any during the next week. This would produce more serious implications for the eastern lakes. 1. The pattern would mean that an extended period of lake effect snow was likely, possible for an entire week. 2. The wind direction would remain the same for a long time, which would result in a band staying over one particular region for days at a time.

Historically, the best W/SW flow lake effect events are cutters. I'll take a cutter with arctic air behind it every day of the week. Then you can get clippers that come in and reinforce the moisture and cold air and change the wind direction so everyone gets a piece of the action.

Indices trending in the right direction. https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/forecasts/reforecast2/teleconn/forecast.html

Like the second half of December as Pv splits take a few weeks to take effect

Big things coming. Hugeeee lake effect potential. Was going to mention it yesterday but couldn’t post for some reason. I texted Devin but he isn’t excited. He’s now a warm weather lover.

The euro weeklies beyond week 3 are nearly completely unreliable.

As already mentioned a very up and down pattern with chances along the way as wolfie pointed out.

The next few weeks:

I like how they referenced CIPS analogs. I like them and hate them at the same time. Some of the top analogs are not even close to what occurs. However, I find them more accurate in LES events than synoptic. The last synoptic event analogs you had to go to number 7 to get anything close to what occurred. The top 6 were basically non events despite the highest matches for atmospheric conditions.

From Nov. 2014 discussion. You usually need at least double digit negative 850s to get anything of semblance with LES aside from very early events. From a climatological perspective, the storm had signs of an unprecedented event early on, with historical analogs and climatological ensembles pointing to a rare if ever seen event over a 30 year climatology. 500 mb temperatures eventually dropped to -42C on the KBUF sounding Tuesday evening. With lake temperatures around 9C, lake induced equilibrium levels exceeded the 500mb temperature and maxed out near 20000'. Further up in the atmospheric column, the 200mb heights were lower than anything in recent memory. The more traditional 850mb temperature value of -15C was also on the lower edge of the climatological spectrum. From pattern recognition, this was a high confidence event...with "feet" of snow in the forecast over four days in advance. Data from the Saint Louis University CIPS (Cooperative Institute for Precipitation Systems) showed several analogs that matched 24 hour record snow events for Buffalo. From the 2nd event A very favorable climatological pattern for heavy lake effect snow was in place over the lower Great Lakes Wednesday and Thursday, Nov 19 and 20, as a deep closed H5 low was centered near the Michigan Straits while anomalously cold air was over the upper Ohio Valley and Mid West. At the surface, low pressure over the Upper Great Lakes Wednesday afternoon tracked across Southern Ontario to the Ottawa Valley by Thursday morning... then to the St Lawrence Valley by Thursday evening. This synoptic pattern circulated H85 temps of -14c across the lower Great Lakes to produce moderate to extreme instability over the relatively mild lake waters. The building instability was accompanied by a capping inversion that rose from around 7k ft at the start of the event to around 15k ft at its peak. The comparable event to this is listed from 1945 During December 14-18, 1945. The airport measured nearly 37 inches with in excess of 70 inches just 4-6 miles south (Lancaster).

You would want it a little further north. But you also want it quite a bit cooler than -5 to -7

That's a good look

I think we have a great winter despite the likely bad early December