Historic Lake Effect Snowstorm

[Geos]

Great video Buffalo Weather! Those snow piles along the main road are just incredible!

 

As far as the Governor of NY going after BUF NWS, that's just ridiculous! There was a LES snow warning out, big amounts were forecasted. He should know its that LES and the amounts that it can produce is one of the trickiest things to forecast.

[BuffaloWeather]

How is your depth holding out? Hope you avoid flooding

 

Current depth is 18 inches. The snow piles all around are still incredible massive. I've never seen flooding at any residence I've had in WNY aside from my parents house in Cheektowaga/Amherst border before they fixed the drainage problems. Before they fixed those I was able to float around on a tube in the middle of my street whenever we had 1-2 inches of rain quickly. TWC used some of my pictures and videos on air. Here is a few pictures they grabbed from my videos.

 

 

 

[BuffaloWeather]

Great video Buffalo Weather! Those snow piles along the main road are just incredible!

 

As far as the Governor of NY going after BUF NWS, that's just ridiculous! There was a LES snow warning out, big amounts were forecasted. He should know its that LES and the amounts that it can produce is one of the trickiest things to forecast.

 

Thanks man! The videos really don't do them justice. I kind of wish I drove around more to get some bigger piles before the thaw started. Some of them were absolutely incredible!

 

I agree about the Governor, the guy is a total tool. I mean, just look at the beginning of this thread. The NWS did an incredible job forecasting this event. They are just looking at ways to pass the blame onto others as the response has been pretty pathetic in some parts of WNY. (South Buffalo, Lackawanna) Travel Bans from Monday night-Sunday, with some that are still unable to get out.

[michsnowfreak]

Current depth is 18 inches. The snow piles all around are still incredible massive. I've never seen flooding at any residence I've had in WNY aside from my parents house in Cheektowaga/Amherst border before they fixed the drainage problems. Before they fixed those I was able to float around on a tube in the middle of my street whenever we had 1-2 inches of rain quickly. TWC used some of my pictures and videos on air. Here is a few pictures they grabbed from my videos.

 

 

 

Wow crazy thats its already down to 18". Will be interesting to see what you have left once the freeze up commences tomorrow night. Im sure BUF officially will go down to 0. Last winter, our deep snowpack got to 4" of water content in Feb (incredible for here) and thats not counting a record winters worth of snowbanks & drifts which had a ton more water (I did unofficial cores that had 6" water in driftier areas), and frozen solid ground. But flooding for the most part was avoided (outside of nuisance stuff and creeks, streams, etc) despite all the hype about flood potential, so hopefully the same will be said up there where the ground is not frozen yet.

 

And awesome on TWC using them. I havent watched them in years lol, they always hype an event, send a reporter to cover it, and 9 times out of 10 show the least impressive scenes as they can on the air (they never go for the money shot).

[BuffaloWeather]

Wow crazy thats its already down to 18". Will be interesting to see what you have left once the freeze up commences tomorrow night. Im sure BUF officially will go down to 0. Last winter, our deep snowpack got to 4" of water content in Feb (incredible for here) and thats not counting a record winters worth of snowbanks & drifts which had a ton more water (I did unofficial cores that had 6" water in driftier areas), and frozen solid ground. But flooding for the most part was avoided (outside of nuisance stuff and creeks, streams, etc) despite all the hype about flood potential, so hopefully the same will be said up there where the ground is not frozen yet.

 

And awesome on TWC using them. I havent watched them in years lol, they always hype an event, send a reporter to cover it, and 9 times out of 10 show the least impressive scenes as they can on the air (they never go for the money shot).

 

Yeah, I followed your guys winters all year last season on your forum. It was awesome to track. The SWE for my area was 6-6.5 inches in the hardest hit areas. We torch pretty well here in WNY. These three days are nearly prefect conditions to destroy a snowpack. But I cannot say I'm upset at this as it is very dangerous to drive here currently. The snowbanks along the road are still 20 feet high continously. I feel like I'm driving in a tunnel.

 

I watch TWC quite often still. There are a few Mets that I truly enjoy watching/listening to. But yeah, "Fat guys in the woods" instead of documenting this LES event at 10:30 pm the other night. I mean come on...

[wxnut]

Any "official" totals from East Aurora?  Didn't see anything on BUF PNS for that location. I see a COCORAHS report from there (1.0 ESE) had 92" from Monday to Friday with 41" from the first event and 51" from the second.  Max snow depth 68.5" on the 21st.  Seems reasonable based on neighbouring reports and band set up. It's also in the general max area for the combined events.. with nearby Cowlesville the top listed site at 88", just east of EA. Just curious to see if anyone topped the 90" mark during this epic LES period.

[BuffaloWeather]

Here is the NWS official writeup for Round 1. Round 2 will be coming shortly.

 

 

Maximum Snowfall: Lake Erie 65" (S. Cheektowaga); Lake Ontario 22" (Philadelphia)

Duration: 48 hours +/-

Flake rating: 5 flakes*****

 

The epic November 17-19^th 2014 lake effect event will be remembered as one of the most significant winter events in Buffalo’s snowy history.  Over 5 feet of snow fell over areas just east of Buffalo, with mere inches a few miles away to the north.   There were 14 fatalities with this storm, hundreds of major roof collapses and structural failures, 1000s of stranded motorists, and scattered food and gas shortages due to impassable roads.  Numerous trees also gave way due to the weight of the snow, causing isolated power outages.  While this storm was impressive on its own, a second lake effect event on Nov-19-20 dropped another 1-4 feet of snow over nearly the same area and compounded rescue and recovery efforts.  Storm totals from the two storms peaked at nearly 7 feet, with many areas buried under 3-4 feet of dense snowpack by the end of the event.

 

The storm began Monday around 6PM evening (Nov 17) as a band of snow developed over the Buffalo Southtowns and quickly moved into the Northtowns with thunder and lightning.  However, the band settled south fairly quickly...and by 9PM the band had moved mostly just south of the city and airport and locked in place as the 15-20 mile wide band centered on a line from Lackawanna and Hamburg ENE across West Seneca, Lancaster, and Alden.  The northern edge of the lake effect band was so striking that many described it as a wall of snow.  Snow rates on the northern edge easily exceeded 3 inches per hour with some snow rates near 6 inches per hour.  By sunrise some areas had already exceeded 3 feet of snow.  This occurred in under 12 hours. Meanwhile, the southern edge of the band was located along the Lake Erie shoreline in Chautauqua County to near the Southtowns, including Orchard Park, East Aurora, and east into Wyoming county including Attica where about a foot of snow had fallen by sunrise.  Travel across the Southtowns was nearly impossible with most roads unplowed as plows, at least those that weren’t stuck, focused a few main roadways needed for emergency vehicles.  The Thruway was was shut down from the PA border to Rochester, and other routes, including 190, 290, and 400 were also shutdown. 

 

During Tuesday November 18, the snow band didn’t budge, and by nightfall snow amounts from Lancaster to Southern Cheektowaga east to Alden had accumulated in excess of 4 to 5 feet by the end of the day. The wall of snow was still quite apparent with blue skies to the north and zero visibility on the other side.  On Transit Road, there were only a few inches on the ground at Genesee Street, but several feet of snow at Walden Avenue less than 2 miles to the south. Winds gusted to 35 mph...and briefly gusted higher along the edges of the band...but in general winds created sub-blizzard conditions.  There were still whiteout conditions however as snow continued to fall in excess of 3 inches per hour. 

 

The band began to waver a little to the south Tuesday night...but overall continued in a slightly weaker state over the southtowns.  Finally, the band let up as it drifted to the north and weakened rapidly Wednesday morning. 

 

East of Lake Ontario, a lake band developed south of Watertown Monday night, then drifted north across the city and ENE to Harrisville.  This band produced stronger winds than its Lake Erie counterpart, with gusts mostly in the 40-50 mph range with a peak gust to 55 mph at Watertown, producing blizzard conditions at times.    By Tuesday night the band settled south over the Tug Hill Plateau, then quickly moved north Wednesday morning.  Storm totals were highly variable, with snow amounts generally ranging between 1-2 feet in the hardest hit areas. 

 

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 level 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.  Locally generated climatological analogs also showed that this event fit the bill for a significant event.   The office had 56 hours lead time on a Lake Effect Watch and 32 hours lead time on a Warning.  The office mentioned 3-5 inches per hour in the Warning prior to the start of the event, and mentioned 2-3 feet forecast with additional significant amounts with the next event later in the week.  Travel was forecast to become nearly impossible.

 

On a side note, this has happened before.  During December 14-18, 1945.  The airport measured nearly 37 inches with in excess of 70 inches just 4-6 miles south (Lancaster). 

 

Off Lake Erie...

65 inches... S. Cheektowaga

63 inches... Lancaster

60 inches... Gardenville

57 inches... West Seneca

51 inches... Elma

48 inches... Hamburg

6.2 inches... Buffalo airport

 

Off Lake Ontario...

22 inches... Philadelphia

16 inches... Redfield

16 inches... Beaver Falls

16 inches... Theresa

15 inches... Harrisville

[BuffaloWeather]

Any "official" totals from East Aurora?  Didn't see anything on BUF PNS for that location. I see a COCORAHS report from there (1.0 ESE) had 92" from Monday to Friday with 41" from the first event and 51" from the second.  Max snow depth 68.5" on the 21st.  Seems reasonable based on neighbouring reports and band set up. It's also in the general max area for the combined events.. with nearby Cowlesville the top listed site at 88", just east of EA. Just curious to see if anyone topped the 90" mark during this epic LES period.

 

I was hoping the NWS was going to come out with totals for both events since they were so close together. But instead they decided to separate them into two separates events. With that being said it is going to be difficult to get a good idea of snowfall totals for the entire event. With SWE of 6-6.5 inches it kind of boggles my mind that totals weren't higher with where the temperatures were during the event and ratios. I was in a pretty great spot for both events as I got 50 inches from round 1 and 38.5 from round 2. Someone in Elma/EA had to be in the sweet spot with 90-100 based on total storm QPF. I am going to send them an email once they release the report for Round 2. I keep in touch with a few members there on Facebook.

[wxnut]

I was hoping the NWS was going to come out with totals for both events since they were so close together. But instead they decided to separate them into two separates events. With that being said it is going to be difficult to get a good idea of snowfall totals for the entire event. With SWE of 6-6.5 inches it kind of boggles my mind that totals weren't higher with where the temperatures were during the event and ratios. I was in a pretty great spot for both events as I got 50 inches from round 1 and 38.5 from round 2. Someone in Elma/EA had to be in the sweet spot with 90-100 based on total storm QPF. I am going to send them an email once they release the report for Round 2. I keep in touch with a few members there on Facebook.

Thanks for the reply, and posting the NWS summary for round 1. What an epic event to be a part of .. must have been something else. That video you took when it was snowing at 5" per hour was unreal. Hearing about 5"/hr is one thing.. seeing it is another! Many thanks for chronicling the storm and sharing with the world.. sure gave a good idea of what it must have been like.  

 

By the way, that East Aurora COCORAHS site ID is NY-ER-66. You can see his daily totals by inputting his ID at the following COCORAHS link..  http://www.cocorahs.org/ViewData/StationSnowSummary.aspx   Interestingly, NWS used his totals for Round 2 on the PNS, but didn't for round 1, perhaps because they didn't get his reports in time.  But he definitely took measurements for both events.  There were also a couple COCORAHS sites in Elma, NY-ER-75 and NY-ER-96. One had 77" for both events (46 + 31), and one had 75" (57 +18, although one day was missing a snow amount so I used his snow depth report) 

[BuffaloWeather]

Thanks for the reply, and posting the NWS summary for round 1. What an epic event to be a part of .. must have been something else. That video you took when it was snowing at 5" per hour was unreal. Hearing about 5"/hr is one thing.. seeing it is another! Many thanks for chronicling the storm and sharing with the world.. sure gave a good idea of what it must have been like.  

 

By the way, that East Aurora COCORAHS site ID is NY-ER-66. You can see his daily totals by inputting his ID at the following COCORAHS link..  http://www.cocorahs.org/ViewData/StationSnowSummary.aspx   Interestingly, NWS used his totals for Round 2 on the PNS, but didn't for round 1, perhaps because they didn't get his reports in time.  But he definitely took measurements for both events.  There were also a couple COCORAHS sites in Elma, NY-ER-75 and NY-ER-96. One had 77" for both events (46 + 31), and one had 75" (57 +18, although one day was missing a snow amount so I used his snow depth report) 

 

Yeah, it was unreal how fast the snowfall rates were coming down. The fastest I measured was 11 inches in 2 hours and that was during the 2nd event. There were definitely some 6 inch snowfall rates in South Cheektowaga/Lancaster area during event one. I am pretty close to NY-ER-39 and they measured 81 inches from the event. I was in a better location overall for both round 1 and 2 than they were. Will be interesting to read the reports from the NWS for Round 2.

 

Forgot to add this picture of me cleaning my driveway after Round 2. Just thin enough to squeak the car out.

 

[BuffaloWeather]

Round 2 from the NWS.

 

Lake Effect Summary - November 19-21, 2014

 

 

 

 

Maximum Snowfall: Lake Erie 49" (Wales Center); Lake Ontario 22.4" (Highmarket)

Duration: 48 hours +/-

Flake Scale: 5 flakes*****

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 feet at the start of the event to around 15k feet at its peak.  This was all very conducive for the second straight lake effect event in less than 48 hours. 

Starting with the activity off Lake Erie…

Lake effect snow blossomed over Eastern Lake Erie and Southern Ontario Wednesday evening on a 220 flow.  Cloud to ground lightning was noted near Long Point near the onset of the activity.  As the cold air deepened and low level winds veered to 240, the lake band pivoted east and aligned itself with Lake Erie, allowing it to take full advantage of heat and moisture fluxes from the full fetch of the lake.  The somewhat cellular band intensified into a solid plume of moderate to heavy lake snow, producing more thundersnow (in the Buffalo area) process.  In the vicinity of the lightning, dual pol imagery depicted a wealth of graupel around 4k feet (nr -10c), which just happened to be in the heart of the mixed phase portion of the lake cloud.  The band temporarily settled south to the Chautauqua County lake shore to the Buffalo southtowns to Southern Genesee County by midnight…very close to the where the momentous lake snow storm took place 24 to 48 hours earlier.  During overnight, the band drifted back north to the Buffalo metropolitan area with enhanced cells producing another round of thunder snow.  Unlike the epic event of the previous couple days, this snow band oscillated back and forth for the remainder of the event…drifting south by daybreak across Southern Erie County (about 10 miles south of the heaviest snow from the previous storm) and extending across Wyoming County before arching back to the north to the immediate southern suburbs of Buffalo for a couple hours Thursday afternoon.

The lake band was very well organized from late Wednesday night through much of Thursday, with IR satellite imagery indicating that there were abundant overshooting tops within the bands where some cloud tops (-35C)  exceeded the cap by some 5k ft.  The intensity of the band was also evident from the 2 to 4 inch per hour snowfall rates. This enabled the event to produce snowfall amounts of up to 4 feet across parts of Southern Erie County and Wyoming County.  The moderate to heavy snow extended east across Livingston and Ontario counties as well…with accumulations approaching a foot over northern Livingston County.  After the passage of a couple of reinforcing secondary cold fronts late Thursday afternoon and evening, the low level flow veered to the northwest, and this pushed the lake snows into the southern tier where increased shear and a shorter fetch broke the solid plume of snow into multiple bands.  Snowfall amounts across the Western Southern Tier generally ranged from 6 to 12 inches with slightly higher amounts over the hilltops. 

Off Lake Ontario…

As is usually the case, the lake effect snow was 3 to 6 hours later in developing than that off Lake Erie.  The band initially started over Kingston and parts of southern Quebec shortly after midnight Wednesday night, then as the 220 flow veered to 240 during the wee hours of the morning, the band shifted south and east across Jefferson County.  By daybreak Thursday, twin bands of moderate to heavy snow were found east of Lake Ontario, with one centered over northernmost Jefferson County and the other over the northern slopes of the Tug Hill and northern Lewis County.  As the southern band pushed south off the lake during the course of Thursday morning, the northern band drifted south to the northern slopes of the Tug Hill (southern Jefferson County to northern Lewis) where it remained nearly stationary through the course of the afternoon.  Unlike the plume of heavy snow off Lake Erie, there was only limited lightning generated from the band off Lake Ontario, and that came over the Tug Hill Plateau.  There is a suggestion that this lightning may have had some help from the orographic lift, as there was no lightning with the band when it was north or south of the Tug Hill.

A solid band of heavy lake snow was found over the Tug Hill Thursday evening, then the activity drifted south across Oswego and southernmost Lewis County during the remainder of the night.  Snowfall rates of 2 to 4 inches an hour helped to produce an average of a foot to a foot and half of snow within this band leading up to daybreak Friday…at which point the lake effect had weakened and become multi band in nature over Oswego and Northern Cayuga counties.  The lake effect remained multi band in nature Southeast of Lake Ontario through midday Friday while continuing to weaken to nuisance lake streamers.  Little additional snow accumulations were reported during the daylight hours Friday.

 

Off Lake Erie...

49.0 inches... Wales Center

48.0 inches... Marilla

47.5 inches... East Aurora

40.6 inches... Wyoming

10.7 inches... Buffalo airport

 

Off Lake Ontario...

22.4 inches... Highmarket

19.9 inches... Carthage

18.0 inches... Constableville

12.8 inches... Harrisville

11.0 inches... Redfield

 

[BuffaloWeather]

Judging by these maps/reports someone from Elma/East Aurora/Wales got 90-100+ inches.

[BuffaloWeather]

[MillvilleWx]

Pretty amazing what high dew points can do. Snow is no match for it.

I saw that round 2 report. Great job by the NWS at Buffalo for both rounds of the system. The Lakes are cooler now, but I think there's another good round to be had from Erie. Thanks for still reporting back on this amazing event Buffalo. Awesome job all around

[BuffaloWeather]

Pretty amazing what high dew points can do. Snow is no match for it.

I saw that round 2 report. Great job by the NWS at Buffalo for both rounds of the system. The Lakes are cooler now, but I think there's another good round to be had from Erie. Thanks for still reporting back on this amazing event Buffalo. Awesome job all around

Thanks man! I thought it was an awesome time lapse. Will be nice to look back at this thread for years to come. I know most people don't like this warm-up, but I will enjoy it. Winters last until late March/April around these parts. The lake freezing early sucks. Will be nice to have some warmth the next two weeks to keep the lake warm and allow for some truly arctic air to come over them in 3-4 weeks.

[Chinook]

Wow, I wonder how much thermal energy went into just melting the snow in that one yard in the video.

[BuffaloWeather]

Judging by these maps/reports someone from Elma/East Aurora/Wales got 90-100+ inches.

 

The highest total I was able to find for this storm was from Cocarahs, seems like EA was the winner. I measured 88" here as well as Cowlesville in Wyoming county. A friend of mind lives in Northwest Hamburg right along the lake shore and came in at 84" inches.

 

Station- NY-ER-66- 92"- East Aurora

 

SWE values in the hardest hit regions were 6-6.5" which would make ratios in the 1:12-1:15 range. Pretty sloppy stuff for lake effect.

[BuffaloWeather]

Really good video from Reed Timmer. Made his #1 chase of the year.

 

THE GRAND FINALE!! the Top 15 Most Memorable Storm Chases of 2014:

#1 is the Buffalo lake effect snow emergency on November 17-19, when over 9 FEET of snow crippled the South Towns of Buffalo downwind of Lake Erie... which became not only a record-breaking snow storm locally for Buffalo, but one of the top 3 worst snow storms in record U.S. history for ANY location. I chased this storm with Maria Molina and Ray Bohac and team.

 

[MillvilleWx]

Really good video from Reed Timmer. Made his #1 chase of the year.

THE GRAND FINALE!! the Top 15 Most Memorable Storm Chases of 2014:

#1 is the Buffalo lake effect snow emergency on November 17-19, when over 9 FEET of snow crippled the South Towns of Buffalo downwind of Lake Erie... which became not only a record-breaking snow storm locally for Buffalo, but one of the top 3 worst snow storms in record U.S. history for ANY location. I chased this storm with Maria Molina and Ray Bohac and team.

Truly amazing. What an experience and you lived it Buffalo. You'll remember that one to the grave.

[BuffaloWeather]

Truly amazing. What an experience and you lived it Buffalo. You'll remember that one to the grave.

 

Seriously. I am glad I lived through the heart of the hardest hit area. My family always talks about how bad the blizzard of 77 was. They have so many stories about that storm that I loved hearing. This is the type of event you pass on stories to your kids and nephews/nieces. I love having all these videos up on YouTube to show them how crazy this storm was in a decade or two.

 

Awesome loop of round 1

 

[BuffaloWeather]

Was going through some more data of this storm and came across this. Not sure if posted yet, but has a maximum snow depth of 58.4 inches and a max SWE of 9 inches on Nov. 21st.

 

[BuffaloWeather]

Some before and after pictures from the Nov. storm. Pretty cool.

 

http://projects.buffalonews.com/november-storm-then-now/day-two.html

 

Also a total snowfall picture I found earlier today.

 

[dutch]

Just came across this post. LOVE those pictures in the article that show before and after!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk

[BuffaloWeather]

Just came across this post. LOVE those pictures in the article that show before and after!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk

 

I put together a nice slideshow of the best pictures.

[dutch]

Awesome. Not sure how I missed that but it's an awesome video. Thanks! Love the pics from aircraft.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk

[BuffaloWeather]

1 hour ago, WxWatcher007 said:

I just looked at this thread for the first time. I'm in AWE. I've always meant to come up there for a big LE event, and now I'm more motivated than ever to do so. Any tips for a snow lover?

Thanks WxWatcher, I will never live through another storm like that in my life. 88" of snow in basically 3 days. A strong Lake Effect Band is unlike anything you'll ever see in a synoptic system. If you haven't experienced a Late Nov to Early January lake effect band you have to. The TugHill bands are usually stronger than the Lake Erie bands. Millxville and a few others are planning to come up this winter and chase. Maybe they can take you with him, I think he lives really close to DC.

As far as tips, make sure to bring a car that can drive in feet of snow. Snow tires and 4 wheel/all drive. Also prepare not to sleep much during an event, it's just to exciting. I think I slept a 2 hours a day during that November event. Lake Effect season starts in about 40 days, so I'm starting to get excited.

[BuffaloWeather]

On 9/22/2016 at 7:09 PM, WxWatcher007 said:

I'm pumped. I was thinking of just hunkering down before an event and leaving after things clear so I can see how the area deals with an event from start to finish. I hear that TugHill is legit. I'm pumped, but I fear I'll setup shop and get shafted like I always do in DC  

Yeah, you want to make sure you pick a definite event before making the drive up. There is usually a few a year, especially off the Tug. A bust there can end up still being a few feet of snow. Here is a good website to see some of the events in the last 15 or so years off both lakes. Let me know when you want to hook up with us, me and Devin will be chasing quite a bit in WNY this year.

https://web.archive.org/web/20130222181131/http://www.erh.noaa.gov/buf/lakepage.php

[BuffaloWeather]

39 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

That site is great. I definitely want to get up there this season for one event. A big daddy event (24+) would be incredible to witness. Not to clog up the thread, but how much lead time do you usually get for big events? Is it similar to the east coast coastals where we usually have a few days to prep? I imagine it might be similar. 

You can usually get an even longer lead time on an event happening, but exact placement and strength is usually a few days out type of deal. When you get the first really cold air of the season you can usually plan on some lake effect. The November storm we started talking about 10 days in advance. As you can see this thread started on Nov 10th, but the event didn't start until late Nov 17th. We mentioned it a few days before that to in a previous thread. On average there is usually 2-4 24"+ events off Erie a year and 4-6+ 24"+ events off the Tug