Heavy lake effect snow will continue off Lake Erie into Saturday, then the big show moves to areas off Lake Ontario, mainly the northern half of Tug Hill and snowbelt areas to the north. We made some tweaks to amounts and bands based off the 3km NAM projections. Still holding the big accums basically where we had them, maybe a touch farther south, and adjusted accums accordingly.
So the bottom line here is that the Lake Erie show winds down during the day tomorrow as Lake Ontario get ramped up. Saturday Night into Sunday Morning, it’s all North Country and the Tug Hill, especially the northern half. The discrepancies will be large… From a few inches north side of Buffalo and the Tonawandas to a few feet southtowns and Orchard Park. Dunkirk, Fredonia, Hamburg, Lackawana and East Aurora to the Boston Hill and Springville should be bullseye. Off Lake Ontario, it will range a few inches from Westdale, 46 Corners, West Leyden to Forestport and the MRP, to a little more around C’ville, Turin and Old Forge… to over a foot on the hill proper (say northern half of Osceola to Barnes Corners, Montague, Martinsburg… staying around to just N of Highmarket towards Tabolts and Flat Rock. Bullseye off Lake Ontario will be Adams, Worth, Dry Hill, Copenhagen to Carthage, north slopes of the Tug, into Harrisville, Star Lake, Cranberry Lake and towards Norridgewock to Sabbatis. Not as much in the Tri Lakes as I thought but still enough to erase the brown with white.
As for riding, don’t even think about going anywhere at this time. Unless the clubs say otherwise. Seriously. This Christmas Eve rainstorm did a ton of damage to snowpack, water everywhere, some bridges in spots too. Unfortunately it looks like the Grinch won and it’s not over.
Monday a clipper rolls by with a dusting to an inch or two across Upstate with at least a few additional inches, potentially several in snowbelt areas Monday PM to Tuesday AM. We’ll throw a snowmap on that Sunday if warranted.
About the better looking pattern I thought was good… eh… lets pretend I never said that. Would have been better off had I not. Ugh.
Seems like the recent rule of thumb going back to last season is this: Any snows and cold outside of 4 days, impossible to pin down. Any signs of warmth and rain that crop up, even at day 8-10, push your chips to the table and double down. You’ll cash in big.
And with that, don’t ask me about New Years. Just don’t. What looked like a big storm going south and east of Upstate a few days ago, now trending north and west of Upstate. New Years Eve and New Years Day… we’ll it’s 2020, and 2020 giving us a rotten PB & J sandwich on the way out.
Hope your Christmas was good. Make the most of each day, even if it’s not the circumstances that you want.
Rich
