You might be wondering what happened with the lake effect snow and why it was different than our forecast.
Strong lake effect snow did not move as far south as we anticipated. Since it remained mostly near and north of the Route 31 corridor and remained mostly quasi-stationary, that allowed lake effect snow bands to continually hit the same areas over and over again. That’s why portions of Oswego, Oneida and even the fringe portions of extreme northern Onondaga and Madison counties received feet of snow and why areas just a few miles south either saw much less snow or nearly any lake effect snow.
Here is a list of the heaviest lake effect snow:
After a brief break in the action for most areas Friday night through early Saturday morning, more active wintry weather is next.
Here are our next weather makers:
Widespread light to moderate snow will begin around midday Saturday for Syracuse (earlier southwest and later northeast). This should give most of our area accumulating snow through Saturday afternoon.
However, starting Saturday night, snow will change over to a wintry mixture of sleet and/or freezing rain first for the Finger Lakes region and Southern Tier to eventually the immediate CNY area and then towards Sunday morning for areas north and east of Onondaga county. The ice will last longest for areas near and northeast of Oneida Lake during Sunday. I am worried that these areas may see a longer duration of freezing rain and ice. The areas that see freezing rain/ice the longest could be in for a decent amount of ice accumulations.
Let’s discuss snow accumulations before any change over to a wintry mixture and then rain.
New snow through midday Sunday before changing to a wintry mix/rain for much of Upstate NY:
New snow through midday Sunday before changing to a wintry mix/rain for the immediate CNY area:
Now, let’s see what our forecast calls for ice across the area.
Ice forecast for Saturday night into Sunday for much of Upstate NY before any melting:
Ice forecast for Saturday night into Sunday for the immediate CNY area before any melting:
As mentioned above, many portions of the Finger Lakes and the immediate CNY area should have less ice and a quicker change over to rain. However, note areas east and north Onondaga county, especially near and north and east of Oneida Lake. The combination of a strong easterly wind and recent snowpack should hold temperatures below 32 degrees longer. This should cause ice accumulation to last longer and accumulate more. If this occurs, not only would travel be much worse, it may also cause power outages due to very strong winds developing Sunday evening. Many spots should have wind gust of 40 to 50 MPH. However, gusts to 50-60 MPH will be more likely over areas east of Lake Ontario and east of Oneida Lake. These types of wind gusts alone can cause isolated power outages. However, if ice accumulation is close to what I have in the forecast, many more power outages may occur. We will monitor.
There are weather alerts in effect for this:
The strong, gusty winds Sunday night will bring much colder air back into the entire area.
After reaching the 30s and even 40s for portions of Central New York, temperatures will fall rapidly through the 20s while snow falling Sunday evening. A flash freeze of roads is starting to look more probable. We will keep an eye on this.
Many portions of CNY should receive at least 2-4″ of new snow with up to 8″ of snow possible for areas north of Route 31.
Additional wind and lake effect snow will continue Monday through Tuesday. Early indications show that more significant snow is likely near and north of Route 31, especially for areas that just got hit, potentially around the Route 49 and possibly Route 69 corridors yet again.
As always, we will monitor all of these important weather makers through the weekend and beyond.