Buffalo's Unique Snow Events

I would like to express profound sympathy to Buffalo.

We know that the city of Buffalo, NY gets snow. Being at a latitude that gets cold in winter, Buffalo gets large-scale storms on the national or continental scale.

Buffalo also gets what is known as "Lake-Effect" snow. Most of the really heavy snowfalls are Lake-Effect.

The prevailing wind at this latitude is from the west. Lake Erie is an elongated member of the Great Lakes, aligned mostly east-west, and Buffalo just happens to be at the eastern end of it. What this means is that the prevailing westerly wind passes over the long length of Lake Erie before reaching Buffalo.

Water has a high heat capacity, meaning that it can hold a lot of heat and so requires time to cool. More water evaporates when the water is warm. Air can hold a certain amount of water vapor but warm air can hold more than cold air.

Lake-Effect snow usually occurs in the autumn and early winter. If it suddenly gets cold the air gets cold before the water, since water has a higher heat capacity. As the west wind crosses the length of Lake Erie the water is still warm but the cold air can't hold the water vapor for as long as warm air could. So what happens is that much of the water vapor captured from Lake Erie gets dumped on Buffalo as snow.

Aside from this Lake-Effect snow Buffalo is also vulnerable to some unique snow events. These can produce the greatest and most destructive blizzards of all.

The first that comes to mind is the one that started in late January of 1977, the fabled "Blizzard of "77" that killed nearly thirty people. What happened is that Lake Erie is shallow. It is the only one of the Great Lakes that freezes over because deeper lakes can hold more heat, remember water's high heat capacity. If it gets cold enough for Lake Erie to freeze over the Lake Effect Snow ceases because water is no longer evaporating from the lake.

In the winter of 1976-77 Lake Erie froze over early. There was heavy snow after this, not Lake-Effect snow but from a large-scale blizzard. The snow piled up on the frozen lake. What happened next is that gale-force winds from the southwest picked up the snow from the frozen lake and deposited it across western New York and southern Ontario. Not only was there this heavy snow but there was also a lot of snow already on the ground. To make it even more destructive the wind was extremely cold. Many people froze to death, or suffocated, in their cars when they were stuck and then buried by snow.

If that was all it would have been bad enough, but it wasn't. When the snow melted in the spring the excess water, hindered from running off by a highway that had been built, caused the chemicals to emerge from below ground in what became known as the Love Canal.

This week Buffalo had the "Blizzard of '22", which has killed even more people than in 1977. This was also a unique snow event. Much of the U.S. and Canada were suffering from heavy snow and frigid temperatures. What happened this time in Buffalo is that it had a large-scale storm and Lake-Effect Snow at the same time, that was why the snow was so heavily concentrated in Buffalo.

It had only just been warm in Buffalo and the water of Lake Erie was still warm, meaning that water was evaporating from it. The polar region is usually surrounded by a jet stream, which keeps the warmer and cold air separate. But global warming has weakened the jet stream so that polar air can move south. This brings a very cold spell, known as a "Polar Vortex". Meanwhile warmer air is moving into the polar region and helping to melt the ice caps.

Whenever cold air pushes warm air, or vice-versa, a cold or a warm front, there tends to be storms and precipitation. This is simply because cold air cannot hold as much water vapor as warm air and so the warm air must drop some of it's water when it comes in contact with the cold air. This is how the Polar Vortex created the large-scale storm across the U.S. and Canada.

When this storm with very cold air crossed the length of Lake Erie, with the prevailing west wind, water was still evaporating from the lake. This gave Buffalo a Lake-Effect snowstorm besides the snow that was falling in the large-scale storm system. That was why this was a unique snow event in Buffalo. It was actually two storms in one.

As for which storm was worse the "Blizzard of '22" has killed more people but in 1977, I was 16 years old, I remember the bodies of birds in the spring that had frozen in the blizzard. I don't think that "'22" had that kind of extended cold. As a general rule if birds didn't know how to survive in the cold then they wouldn't be here.

Another unique snow event in Buffalo happened in the Autumn of 2006. Snow usually doesn't start until after the leaves have fallen from the trees. What happened in 2006 is that there was heavy snow very early, when the leaves were still on the trees. This caused the trees to hold onto the snow and the weight of the snow caused the branches to break. The night was filled with the sound of branches snapping and a vast number of trees in the Buffalo area were destroyed.

I live within sight of a really tall smokestack and I habitually glance at it for an idea of what the weather will be like. Obviously when the wind is from the north it will be colder and when it is from the south it will be warmer, but usually without a great change in weather. The prevailing wind at this latitude is from the west and a west wind may bring a change in weather, although usually without a great change in temperature.

What I notice is that when there is something major and large-scale going on in the weather, it may reverse the prevailing wind. This is especially true for remnants of hurricanes along America's east coast which show up here, near Buffalo, as an east wind. Recently there was a major storm system across America's south. Although everything was calm here I noticed that it temporarily reversed the prevailing wind.