Buffalo Snow, One Year Later…

Brian Neudorff @ 9:44 pm October 12th, 2007 · No Comments

I will have more tomorrow on the actual snow event but one year ago tonight (October 12, 2006) I was watching the radar and staring at the computer in Ahhhh of what was transpiring in Buffalo. I was blogging about the snow as it took place last year. You can see my post from then title, “No Snow, So Far So Good.” As I was typing and watching the radar I could see the occasional flash of lightning over the Lake. The image below is what was on JET Pinpoint Doppler…

The winds were on our side that night. With winds out of the southwest it kept the precipitation parallel to the Erie shoreline and pushed all that moisture into Buffalo.

I know many of the forecasters and meteorologist in Buffalo took a lot of heat for “missing” this forecast but it’s hard to forecast a historic storm like this. Most of what we know about the weather is from the past. Past storms, past experiences and so on but there had never been anything like this so early. Here is an excerpt from the National Weather Service in Buffalo’s Area Forecast Discussion from that night…

THE INSTABILITY PARAMETERS ARE ALMOST HISTORIC WITH SUCH A SITUATION WITH A 62 DEGREE LAKE INVOLVED MAKE THIS ALMOST UNPRECEDENTED. LAKE INDUCED CAPES ARE WAY UP INTO 1200-1500 J/KG RANGE…INVERSION/EQUIL LEVELS ARE OVER 20K FT! SO LIGHTNING AND GRAUPEL WILL BE COMMON. QUESTION IS PRECIP TYPE.

WE USUALLY USE A CUTOFF OF -7C OR SO FOR AN 850 MB TEMP IN EARLY SEASON STORMS…BUT THIS IS EVEN EARLIER THAN EARLY! MODELS SUGGEST THE 850?S BOTTOM OUT IN THE -6 TO -7 RANGE OVERNIGHT…AND WITH AIR FLOWING OFF THE 62 DEG LAKE…WOULD HAVE TO FIGURE THAT ANY WET SNOW WOULD MELT ON SURFACE…BUT THE INTENSITY COULD BE EXTREME WHICH WOULD ALLOW FOR SOME STICKING. ALSO…BOTH DETROIT AND GREEN BAY 12Z RAOBS ARE INDICATING 850 MB TEMPS 1-2 DEG COLDER THAN MODEL PROGS…AND DEW PTS ARE VERY LOW UPSTREAM IN OHIO AND MICH…THIS WOULD FAVOR A SLIGHTLY COLDER SOLUTION AND MORE THREAT FOR SNOW.

There were several factors that made this storm so bad. One the timing of such an event. There most of the trees had all of their leaves on them. When the snow fell it started to collect on the leaves like a canopy and because the snow was a wet snow it compacts and becomes very heavy this caused tree limbs to break and fall. The snowfall rate was also also astounding.

The NWS was expecting a good portion of the snow to melt as it made contact with the warm ground, “WOULD HAVE TO FIGURE THAT ANY WET SNOW WOULD MELT ON SURFACE…BUT THE INTENSITY COULD BE EXTREME WHICH WOULD ALLOW FOR SOME STICKING.” It was estimated that the surface temperature was in 50s. Unfortunately snow rates of 2 to 3 inches/hour negated the warm ground temperatures and was able to accumulate. Once there was a good coating on the ground the heat from the ground couldn’t melt the snow and the snow kept getting higher and higher.

Now with all that being said there was something interesting in tonight’s area forecast discussion from Buffalo about the Tug Hill region of New York State for Saturday Night. They think 3 to 6 inches of snow could fall in the area. I will have more tomorrow