Just after 11 p.m. Saturday, the National Weather Service in Buffalo issued a special statement, warning of a band of heavy snow accompanied by high winds, creating a "burst of snow" in western New York state.
By Sunday morning, winds shifted more westerly, meaning the heaviest lake-effect snow bands moved south of Buffalo impacting areas from Cleveland to Dunkirk, New York. Buffalo was no longer under a lake-effect snow warning but remained under a winter weather advisory through Sunday evening for "blowing snow."
While the Buffalo area is used to dealing with heavy snowfall, this storm is delivering "much more than we usually get," Mayor Byron Brown told CNN on Saturday. Continue scrolling to check out the images we at Bored Panda gathered to show just how extreme the situation looks.
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Buffalo local and Twitter user Alexandra (@eustace225) is one of the people whose picture we featured to illustrate the snowfall. She shared her dog's reaction to it and its expression was so funny, we just had to include it.
"The weather this time of year is usually just cold with maybe some dustings of snow," Alexandra told Bored Panda. "[But] this past weekend was very overwhelming, we broke New York State records with snowfall. We had about 4 and a half feet, personally."
That's right. Erie County, which includes Buffalo, experienced its largest-ever amount of snowfall in a 24-hour period Saturday, according to Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz.
“This was a RECORD-BREAKING storm that in some ways was more intense than Snowvember, the relatively quick recovery is a testament to everyone’s preparation and planning,” Poloncarz tweeted. “The proactive approach continues to work.”
Alexandra agrees that the local authorities actually handled things very well. "They closed schools and shut down roads and interstates early Thursday before it all started. Declared a state of emergency early and brought in outside help. I think they learned a lot from the storm in 2014."
The USA really needs to invest more money in disaster relief. The way things are going, we can expect some major climate catastrophe almost every year.
The “Snowvember” that Alexandra and Poloncarz referred to was a storm in the Buffalo area in November 2014, when almost 7 feet of snow was dumped in just three days. That storm had taken the lives of at least 13 people and the weight of the snow caused dozens of roofs to crumble under the impact.
So far, this storm has taken 2 casualties, who collapsed from cardiac complications related to shoveling snow and attempting to clear the ground, Poloncarz said.
An observation site near Orchard Park, where the NFL’s Buffalo Bills play, recorded a snow total of 80 inches since Thursday, making it the third-highest three-day total ever in the state of New York.
As you can see from the pictures, the multiday weather event has made travel in the region difficult, triggering the closing of roads, driving bans, and flight cancellations the weekend before the Thanksgiving holiday.
A good servant knows to appropriately attend to the needs of their god. This human will live another day.
Travel bans were in effect for much of Erie County, but as of Sunday morning, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul tweeted that many roads in Buffalo and Watertown have been able to reopen, and “traffic is starting to move again!”
Nearly 400 citations have been issued to drivers who were violating travel bans in the region, Poloncarz, the Erie County executive, said.
“If you’re trying to enter an area where a travel ban exists, you will meet a friendly neighborhood New York State trooper who will immediately give you a ticket for violating the travel ban,” Poloncarz said.
Memories. Ah, memories. I'm 5-10. We have pics of me in snow to my chin when I was a mere 5-8. ( In metric, 1.73 meters tall at five-foot-eight-inches.) And, to be honest, the snow kept the wind off you, so it was kinda better than no-snow-and-wind.
While officials earlier said some vehicles had to be towed after being stuck on the side of the road or involved in accidents, Hochul thanked New Yorkers who adhered to travel advisories and stayed home: "Thank you for just following the directions, staying off the roads, and as a result, all the major thoroughfares are open now in western New York and the north country, with some limitation."
Air travel also has been challenged by the record snow, with dozens of flights arriving and departing from Buffalo Niagara International Airport canceled as conditions worsened, according to the airport’s website.
The airport set a daily snowfall record of 21.5 inches Saturday, shattering the previous daily record of 7.6 inches set in 2014. It ranks as the fifth-highest single-day snowfall total on record for Buffalo and the second-highest single-day snowfall total for the month of November.
Can confirm. I live in the Northtowns of the Buffalo area. Less than 5-6 inches. My coworker who is down by the stadium had over 3 feet and it was still coming down last I talked to him. Plus, he lost power.
As a native of the Up North, I love thepics people get of the systems/cells moving through. You can be fine and then, boom! Whiteout! (Which we sang to the tune of Wipeout, the old surf song.)
Brown, the Buffalo mayor, said the city could return to “some sense of normalcy” by Monday or Tuesday, assuming the worst of the storm had passed through Sunday.
"This has been a very unpredictable storm with the snow bands moving, back and forth, north to south," Brown noted. "The snow has come down very fast, very wet, very heavy."
Nah. He knows he'll get warm working, so why get his jeans all sweaty? Pfft. It's snow, not *cold* (read: -20*C/F). Signed, a native of The Up North This is Our Normal
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As a Canadian, I can confirm we do that sometimes. I once took out the garbage in shorts, while shirtless, as a teen, in -15 degree Celsius. Only out for about 2 minutes, lol.
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Nah, there are people out there (usually men) who wear shorts all year long, doesn't matter the weather. I want to be one.
No! You just can't wear thigh-length shorts after Labor Day! Time to switch to knee-length, dude.
There is always that one guy who has to show how "tough" he is by running around in the better cold in shorts!🤪
You don't want to get too hot working in the yard! You could catch a cold!!
Note: this post originally had 90 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
About ten minutes after it hit we were there. And it carried on for another two days.
Load More Replies... For context to my fellow Pandas: I grew up on the US Canadian border and spent a lot of time in the "snow belt" regions of both. It's not unusual for Buffalo to get a lot of snow. It usually stops after a meter or so to give people breathing space. (For the US Pandas, that's roughly 39 inches.)
We got a little snow and ice one year here in NC. Shut everything down. We had transplant people from New York asking why the sanders and snowplows weren't out clearing things. I replied with "because they don't want to invest huge amounts of money in something that only happens every 7-8 years." On that same note, I had NC people asking me what the metal tubes were in front of the tires of Washington State School buses. I said they were sanders to keep the buses from getting stuck on snowy hills. I'm just glad I now live where snow is a rare occasion.
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You know something's wrong when you're in Minnesota and there's only 2 inches of snow...
Lived south of Boston for the blizzard of '78 working at Cumberland's dairy farm and the head herdsman was from the Buffalo area who laughed as he mentioned "this is nothing but normal for me" - and he was spot on.
My husband is from PA and I’ve lived in NC my whole life. He said he doesn’t miss that weather.
Load More Replies... I find this so scary. When you can’t pull a snow plow out of the snow?!! People have done amazing jobs digging down their driveways. I would not know where to start. I am so concerned that when it gets a little warmer and the snow on the roofs is going to get even more heavy that many are going to collapse under the weight of wet snow. I’m concerned about that now. Having grown up in Toronto I know of many of these places because our US TV came from there. Wishing them all the best in digging out.
I'm lucky being in Astoria,where the harshest weather is consistently 20 and under
I was right in the middle of this storm. Snowed in for three days. I wish I could post my pics here. They are incredible. My town got close to six feet of snow.
I live in north tx/southern ok area. We get half an inch and everyone freaks out and panic shops for all the necessities and there are tons of wrecks. I was born and lived in Pueblo CO until I was 10 though so I I’m just like…🙄 I’ve literally waited for the school bus while it was snowing and there was already several feet of snow. And thanks to that I was taught how to drive on snow and ice. Never had a wreck because of either. I try to stay in when it happens though because I don’t trust other drivers.
They knew it was coming, and most people were prepared to be snowed in. Anyone who has lived in/around Buffalo for any number of years *knows* to expect blizzards & lake effect snow in the winter months. And there's really no way any meteorologist can be 100% accurate on how much snow will pile up, even with all the fancy, computerized equipment on the planet.
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Very scary. I live in Massachusetts and questionable nor easter coming after thanksgiving day on the w/e. We don't know if it will be rain or snow. I'm praying for rain. I feel for all of you that were impacted by the storm you just had. Love to all of you. Stay safe, happy and healthy everyone!!✌️
And now it's supposed to warm up, again, so get prepared to melt and ice over. Winter is a cruel mistress.
Oh boy - I really hope this doesn’t happen to us up where we live in the Ottawa Valley. Better tell my husband to hook the snowblower attachment back up to the tractor asap!
Good to see you people handle it well. I don't know if you have so much snow regularly or not but snow calamity is not fun. Stay safe.
About ten minutes after it hit we were there. And it carried on for another two days.
Load More Replies... For context to my fellow Pandas: I grew up on the US Canadian border and spent a lot of time in the "snow belt" regions of both. It's not unusual for Buffalo to get a lot of snow. It usually stops after a meter or so to give people breathing space. (For the US Pandas, that's roughly 39 inches.)
We got a little snow and ice one year here in NC. Shut everything down. We had transplant people from New York asking why the sanders and snowplows weren't out clearing things. I replied with "because they don't want to invest huge amounts of money in something that only happens every 7-8 years." On that same note, I had NC people asking me what the metal tubes were in front of the tires of Washington State School buses. I said they were sanders to keep the buses from getting stuck on snowy hills. I'm just glad I now live where snow is a rare occasion.
Load More Replies... You know something's wrong when you're in Minnesota and there's only 2 inches of snow...
Lived south of Boston for the blizzard of '78 working at Cumberland's dairy farm and the head herdsman was from the Buffalo area who laughed as he mentioned "this is nothing but normal for me" - and he was spot on.
My husband is from PA and I’ve lived in NC my whole life. He said he doesn’t miss that weather.
Load More Replies... I find this so scary. When you can’t pull a snow plow out of the snow?!! People have done amazing jobs digging down their driveways. I would not know where to start. I am so concerned that when it gets a little warmer and the snow on the roofs is going to get even more heavy that many are going to collapse under the weight of wet snow. I’m concerned about that now. Having grown up in Toronto I know of many of these places because our US TV came from there. Wishing them all the best in digging out.
I'm lucky being in Astoria,where the harshest weather is consistently 20 and under
I was right in the middle of this storm. Snowed in for three days. I wish I could post my pics here. They are incredible. My town got close to six feet of snow.
I live in north tx/southern ok area. We get half an inch and everyone freaks out and panic shops for all the necessities and there are tons of wrecks. I was born and lived in Pueblo CO until I was 10 though so I I’m just like…🙄 I’ve literally waited for the school bus while it was snowing and there was already several feet of snow. And thanks to that I was taught how to drive on snow and ice. Never had a wreck because of either. I try to stay in when it happens though because I don’t trust other drivers.
They knew it was coming, and most people were prepared to be snowed in. Anyone who has lived in/around Buffalo for any number of years *knows* to expect blizzards & lake effect snow in the winter months. And there's really no way any meteorologist can be 100% accurate on how much snow will pile up, even with all the fancy, computerized equipment on the planet.
Load More Replies... Very scary. I live in Massachusetts and questionable nor easter coming after thanksgiving day on the w/e. We don't know if it will be rain or snow. I'm praying for rain. I feel for all of you that were impacted by the storm you just had. Love to all of you. Stay safe, happy and healthy everyone!!✌️
And now it's supposed to warm up, again, so get prepared to melt and ice over. Winter is a cruel mistress.
Oh boy - I really hope this doesn’t happen to us up where we live in the Ottawa Valley. Better tell my husband to hook the snowblower attachment back up to the tractor asap!
Good to see you people handle it well. I don't know if you have so much snow regularly or not but snow calamity is not fun. Stay safe.
