Lake Effect

In case anybody didn't notice it was quite cold this weekend.  Especially on Sunday.  The winds were not helping either.  With that steady northerly wind we also saw our first solid lake effect snowfall occur for some of our favorite snowy city zones.  This could only be the beginning of a busy opening start to the winter season.

This year I'd like to really take some extra time to look at snow storms or lake effect snow events that either have an impact on our weather locally or the weather of the areas in the snow zones or other parts of the region.  Basically I plan on making a post about almost every event that is at least worthy of a story.

Let's begin with the first from this weekend.  Oddly enough I found it interesting.

First I will show the warnings posted from Saturday morning for the central New York region.  The dark blue shows areas with a lake effect warning and the lighter blue an advisory.

What I find interesting about this is you see a group of four counties shaded with a warning.  None of them touch the lake meanwhile many surrounding counties including ones closer to the lake only see an advisory.  It's a clear indication of wind direction to see a sharp northerly to north easterly wind blowing across the lake.  The more intriguing factor is the centralized location.  You can thank a strong wind and the dynamics of lake effect snow for that.

Lake effect snow can travel and pile up miles away from the lake it originally comes from.  This particular event saw a wind direction not entirely common.  That made the distance the fetch had to work with noticeably smaller than a west to east wind that can span hundreds of miles across.  It also pushed the clouds and moisture further inland where it was deposited instead of right at the coast.  Continuing south the elevation slowly begins to rise which can also lead to higher snow totals due to lifting. 

A little different to kick off the season.  Made it interesting for me to watch unfold.  It didn't turn out to be quite as bad as I think some thought it could be.  Here is a map of the total snowfall for various places in Onondaga County (home to Syracuse) for the weekend.

 

Like most cities, the snowfall for Syracuse is recorded at the airport.  Unlike most cities the snowfall totals from town to town in this area can vary greatly.  The 6.0 is the recording from the airport which is north of downtown.  The winner, at least for the county, was the town of Skaneateles with 10 inches that sits on the northern section of the Finger Lake of the same name.

And by the way, the towns right along the shores like Oswego, who normally get pounded received less than an inch.  Weather can be funny.

Snow Zones 11-23 to 11-24

Syracuse:  6.7 inches

Johnstown:  2.5 inches

Burlington:  2.4 inches

ROUND 2

The Thanksgiving Eve storm won't be a big deal for our area in terms of wintry weather.  There could be some though probably nothing amounting to more than an inch either at the start or the end.  The areas to our west and north will not be so lucky or really lucky depending on who you talk to.

At the time of this post Johnstown currently is under a winter storm warning, Syracuse a watch and Burlington an advisory.  It's all about timing for when the weather service issues certain warning levels.  I would assume Syracuse will be changed to a warning.  Burlington might be a bit too far east for the bulk of this one which leaves the battle between Johnstown and Syracuse.  Syracuse has a slight edge in positioning, but Johnstown has some funky terrain.  Don't count them out.

A full report following the storm for our area and our friends will be done by the end of the week.