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Upstate NY/North Country + adjacent ON, QC, VT: Heading into Fall

lakeeffectkid383

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kulaginman

kulaginman

Posted
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I know it's a tough call but how much do you think the west side area will get? updated zone forecast only mentions areas south and along route 5 receiving the most accumulation.

 

Forecasting LES is never cut-and-dry but I feel like this particular event has even more variables to consider (ice coverage, moisture in the boundary layer, inefficient snow growth, strong winds/shear)...I'm not quite as confident on the widespread 24"+ amounts that others might be. Then again, with the type of instability progged on Bufkit...this thing could absolutely crank if everything else comes together just right...in which case 24" totals could be reached in as little as 5 hours should the band remain stationary for any length of time. For now I've been telling people to expect around two feet in the jackpot areas, and those numbers can always be taken up as the event approaches.

 

I don't believe the west side will "jackpot" from this event, but the latest NAM shows a pretty decided northward shift on Tuesday with the metro area under the gun from approximately 15z-21z. I tend to feel that northward shifts end up being more pronounced than the models often indicate...so I wouldn't be surprised if this thing pushes all the way up into southern parts of Niagara County for a time on Tuesday. Should that come to fruition, I'm pretty confident that the city of Buffalo (including the west side) could pick up around a foot of snow on Tuesday. That combined with a few inches from the initial disorganized period of LES tomorrow morning could bring your event total up to around 15" give or take...though with the extensive drifting involved with this storm, it will be nearly impossible to measure.

 

 

 

I would feel much better about this event if you were in town, given your recent track record of being a snow magnet...

 

How did you make out with the coastal last week?  1-2 feet in that area of Mass seemed pretty common.  

 

We ended up with around 11" of snow in my town (Norwood). Nice event, but that fell over a period of more than 24 hours...so the snowfall rates never really blew me away. At one point, however, it was snowing moderately with a temperature of 2F...which NEVER happens here on the coastal plain! That was pretty cool.

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heavy_wx

heavy_wx

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Very impressive forecast sounding from the 12z GFS for RME early Tuesday morning. It's not too often you see a moist adiabatic profile all the way up to 600 mb. The winds at this time are a bit high generally around 40 kts, but the shear is fairly minimal so the band should have little trouble getting well organized and intense.

 

post-869-0-48478500-1388960369_thumb.png

 

By 12z Tuesday, the winds increase between 900 and 800 mb to around 45 kts, along with an increase in the directional change of the winds with height leading to a decent amount of shear. The band may get a bit less organized at that point but the upslope component over the Tug Hill will still be quite significant, maybe even a bit greater due to the stronger westerly low-level flow.

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jamesnichols1989

jamesnichols1989

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Man no one gets snow like the Tug Hill Plateau of NY.  6' snowfall amounts, we are lucky to get half that amount here on the coastal plain of Massachusetts.  Let along any from Ocean Effect Snows, maybe 1-2' are possible given the favorable parameters such that Boston shoreline could see those amounts.  Cape Cod, MA and the Islands are more susceptible to OES events, but anything over 6" is lucky for us.  ALthough if the right parameters were to align on southwesterly surface flow we could see more than the 6", but this time around is more westerly component.

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BuffaloWeather

BuffaloWeather

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That model did the same thing during the last big event in December where it forecast like 7" for the Tug Hill.

 

I believe some places on the Tug did get 6-7 feet out of that event as well. Obviously this is most likely overdone. But we've seen a few events where the Tug gets 100+ inches of snow.

 

2001 and 2007 being the ones that I remember.

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LakeEffectKing

LakeEffectKing

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I believe some places on the Tug did get 6-7 feet out of that event as well. Obviously this is most likely overdone. But we've seen a few events where the Tug gets 100+ inches of snow.

 

2001 and 2007 being the ones that I remember.

Yep, and in 2004 I had 86" in Parish (C. Oswego Co.) using the 6-12hr. measuring technique.  That was memorable even moreso than the 2007 event in that it occurred in 3.5 days as opposed to the 6 days when I received 127".  At the end of both storms, I had my only 2 times where I (briefly) had over 60" on the level......but as we know, it settled about 2' in a day!!!

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heavy_wx

heavy_wx

Posted
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I believe some places on the Tug did get 6-7 feet out of that event as well. Obviously this is most likely overdone. But we've seen a few events where the Tug gets 100+ inches of snow.

 

2001 and 2007 being the ones that I remember.

 

Yeah don't forget about this epic event in January 1997 as well!

 

http://www.wbuf.noaa.gov/hpns.htm

 

 No question they will do very well with this upcoming event.

 

Ahh....Whew!  I wonder how many of my friends up there in my old stomping grounds are going to be disappointed with only 6' instead of 9'! :lmao:

 

It might make it a little harder to go outside from the second floor using snowshoes. :)

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BuffaloWeather

BuffaloWeather

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Yeah don't forget about this epic event in January 1997 as well!

 

http://www.wbuf.noaa.gov/hpns.htm

 

 No question they will do very well with this upcoming event.

 

 

It might make it a little harder to go outside from the second floor using snowshoes. :)

 

Hey, how did you get access to that page of the 1997 event?

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kulaginman

kulaginman

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Even if 32" is the actual amount in Orchard Park, snowfall totals are almost always under-reported in high wind scenarios. The drifting with this is going to be pretty extreme. As has already been discussed in this thread, the real impact from this event will be due to the whiteout conditions rather than the amount of snow that falls. We may never really be able to verify snowfall totals haha.

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kulaginman

kulaginman

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Another interesting aspect of this storm will be the combination of heavy snow and extreme low temperatures. If the 2m temps on the NAM/Euro verify...we might be looking at 1-2"/hour snowfall rates occurring in areas where the actual air temperature is between -5F and -10F early Tuesday morning. I'm not sure I have ever seen that before.

 

This is likely going to be the most extreme case of cold advection into western New York since January 1994. Does anyone recall a significant lake effect event with that outbreak? I was only 10 years old, but I remember sledding at Bassett Park in Amherst in whiteout conditions during that outbreak. The BUF lake effect database doesn't go back that far.

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ayuud11

ayuud11

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Even if 32" is the actual amount in Orchard Park, snowfall totals are almost always under-reported in high wind scenarios. The drifting with this is going to be pretty extreme. As has already been discussed in this thread, the real impact from this event will be due to the whiteout conditions rather than the amount of snow that falls. We may never really be able to verify snowfall totals haha.

Only in this region can you have a freezing rain,high winds,LES and windchill warnings at the same time :arrowhead:
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kulaginman

kulaginman

Posted
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NAM Bufkit soundings have ramped up the wind potential for tomorrow night and especially Tuesday throughout western NY. Winds are progged to reach 56kts at 850mb from 18-21z Tuesday at KBUF, and momentum transfer should be pretty ideal given the steep lapse rates. Even with minimal directional shear, that's really pushing the limit for what can maintain organized lake plumes IMO...and the wind is my #1 greatest concern for what might prevent storm totals from reaching 30"+ totals east of Lake Erie. Others here may disagree, but the sample size of lake effect events that have occurred with such a wind profile has to be pretty small.

 

On the flip side, this thing has blizzard written all over it. I know they won't pull the trigger, but the NWS would be totally justified issuing a blizzard warning for western NY IMO. Some say they only reserve blizzard warnings for synoptic events, but it should be impact-driven regardless of synoptic or mesoscale - the public doesn't care about that. This could truly be a crippling event, even for storm-savvy western New York.

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