3 Feet of Lake-Effect Snow

The lake-effect snow coming this week is no joke and some areas could receive 3 feet of snow.

In addition, much of New York and Pennsylvania will get at least a covering of snow from this impressive Alberta Clipper that's moving through the Ohio Valley today. You can see the area of snow from the Clipper on the capture of the AccuWeather.com RadarPlus Winter Radar* below. You can also see some lake-effect bands already coming off of Lake Ontario this morning and one far-reaching band which came through Central Pennsylvania, giving us a little dusting of snow.

The amount and placement of lake-effect snow just depends on the wind direction on the lakes, those lake-effect snow bands can snake around the compass and it's always interesting to watch.

A famous heavy lake-effect snow occurred in Buffalo in 2001 when a lake-effect band stayed over the city for 5 days, dropping 81.5 inches (nearly 7 feet) of snow. The 5-day amount broke the city's all-time December snow record. You can see a photo below from the National Weather Service Office in Buffalo below and there are additional photos here.

*The RadarPlus Winter Radar is in internal alpha testing at AccuWeather and will be available to RadarPlus users in December.