Motorists Get Stranded due to Heavy Lake Effect Snow in Buffalo, New York! (credit: WeatherNation)

DISCUSSION: As the strong lake effect snow band began to slowly move ashore into many parts of western New York (i.e., many cities positioned along the eastern shore of Lake Erie), many motorists found themselves in a very treacherous situation.  As the heart of this intense lake effect snow band continued slowly shifting further inland, snowfall accumulated particularly quickly on the roads and also rapidly brought down local visibilities to near zero at many times.  As seen in the picture above (courtesy of WeatherNation), the snowfall was indeed quite heavy with very slow travel being the only option during the periods of heaviest snowfall as the lake effect snow band continued to be pushed inland.  This shifted position from the band being positioned over the heart of Lake Erie and over towards eastern shoreline and beyond was the result of winds which were previously out of the southwest beginning to shift to being more out of the west-southwest and eventually due west.  Hence, this limited the total distance over which the colder air was able to travel and weakened the overall lake effect response off of Lake Erie and pushed the primary lake effect towards the eastern shoreline and beyond with time.

To learn more about other high-impact weather events from across North America, be sure to click here!

©2017 Meteorologist Jordan Rabinowitz