Deadly lake-effect snowfall shuts down travel, shatters New York state’s 24-hour accumulation record

New Yorkers face the arduous task of cleaning up from an “extreme” lake-effect snowfall that blasted the region from Thursday into Sunday, unloading more than 6 feet of snow, stranding motorists, forcing travel bans and school closures.

Mountains of snow lined roads and driveways in western New York Monday as residents continued the arduous task of digging out from one of the most significant lake-effect events in recent history. The area just a few miles south of Buffalo, New York, was the focal point of a vigorous band of lake-effect snow that unloaded over 6 feet in some locations, with people running out of places to put all of the powder.

The extreme snowstorm is being blamed for at least three fatalities. Two people suffered from cardiac events while clearing snow in Erie County, according to The Associated Press, with a third Erie County death from the same cause confirmed by Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz on Monday. A snowplow driver in Hamlet, Indiana, was also killed on Friday after his vehicle slid off the road amid lake-effect snow coming off of Lake Michigan, the AP said.

FEMA approved the emergency declaration for Erie County and surrounding areas early on Monday. This will help reimburse costs accrued by the county, cities, towns and villages during this event. As of Monday morning, Erie County was still under a state of emergency. Travel bans were still in effect for parts of Buffalo on Monday, but bans had been replaced by advisories in other parts of Erie County.

Hamburg, New York, located 14 miles south of downtown Buffalo, measured a colossal 81.2 inches of accumulation as of Monday afternoon, topping the Orchard Park (located 11 miles southeast of downtown Buffalo) total by 1.2 inches. Orchard Park was initially slated to be the location of Sunday’s NFL game as the Buffalo Bills face off against the Cleveland Browns, but due to safety concerns and the work it would take to clear the snow from the stadium and parking lots by kickoff, the matchup was moved to Ford Field in Detroit.

Furthermore, Orchard Park unofficially received 66 inches of accumulation over a 24-hour timespan. If confirmed by the New York state climatology office, this would set a new state record for the most snowfall in a 24-hour period. The current record stands at 50 inches, measured in Camden, New York, in 1966.

In some areas near Buffalo, dump trucks were brought in to remove snow to help with the back-breaking work of clearing roads and to make room for more snow if more lake-effect snow develops. “When the snow started getting very heavy, I just had to keep up with it,” Orchard Park resident Dave Santana told AccuWeather National Reporter Jillian Angeline. “That was the only way, to keep ahead of it."

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called the event "extreme" in a press conference on Thursday before the worst of the snow began as a state of emergency began to be issued for nearly a dozen counties. Ahead of the first snowflakes, over 300 plows and 5,700 power crews were deployed or placed on standby.

On Saturday morning, 70 members of the National Guard were deployed to southtowns. On Saturday afternoon, the amount of National Guard members dispatched more than doubled to 150, according to CBC.

Travel became nearly impossible for trucks and snow plows as the snow poured down at a rate of 3-5 inches per hour at times, making it difficult for crews to keep the roads visible. Reports of thundersnow were prolific amid the intense band streaming off of Lake Erie and videos showed a wall of snow moving toward Buffalo at one point. A waterspout was also reported on Friday over Lake Erie, another sign of just how potent the weather system affecting the region had become.

Many schools across the region will remain closed on Monday due to the long-lasting impact from the lake-effect snow.

A travel ban was extended to include the entire city of Buffalo on Saturday, but it didn't stop people from attempting to navigate through roads clogged with snow.

The Buffalo News reported that law enforcement officers wrote 300-plus tickets throughout the day on Friday to drivers who violated travel bans that were in place. Erie County officers hired private contractors to deliver additional equipment such as high-lifts and large trucks to help dig out communities in the Buffalo southtowns, the Buffalo News reported.

Reports emerged of first responders getting stuck behind tractor-trailers that were unable to move onto secondary roads in Orchard Park. "This is the problem we have been dealing with across the Southtowns," Poloncarz said on Twitter. "This is Abbott Road and Lake Avenue in Hamburg/[Orchard Park]. Tractor-trailers that are rarely on this road tried to get around the Thruway closure and got stuck. This is why we can't get to secondary roads/neighborhoods."

“Trucks stuck all over the place,” Extreme Meteorologist Reed Timmer said in a video update from the side of the New York State Thruway in Hamburg, New York, on Friday afternoon, saying the thruway basically looked like "a river of white as far as the eye can see."

Timmer pivoted to "on-foot-coverage" on Friday morning as travel by vehicle became unfeasible with waist-deep snow. By Saturday morning, snowfall totals in Hamburg had eclipsed 6 feet as some children took to sledding from the top of their family's completely buried SUV. Daylight revealed numerous motorists stuck in the parking lot of the hotel that Timmer and the rest of the AccuWeather crew hunkered down in during the storm.

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There were some signs of progress on Saturday morning as the Buffalo Niagara International Airport reopened its runways, following a temporary shutdown. Buffalo tallied a record-breaking 21.5 inches on Saturday, breaking the previous daily record of 7.6 inches set in 2014.

The two intense bands that were streaming off of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario since Thursday shifted northward Saturday morning in a response to a wind direction change.

As expected, those bands shifted southward once again Saturday night, delivering additional snow to the hardest-hit areas along with strong winds that created blowing snow conditions.

By Sunday morning, the New York State Thruway was reopened and snow-free, Hochul said. But many streets still remained buried.

"We are in the process of opening every street. We cannot and do not have the resources, including the National Guard, to shovel out every person’s driveway. We’re talking about hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people," said Poloncarz.

As is typical in lake-effect scenarios, snowfall totals varied greatly over short distances as a result of the narrow width of the intense snow bands. North of Buffalo, the sun could be seen shining as light snow coated the University of Buffalo's football field on Friday. Meanwhile, the Buffalo Bills stadium, located 19 miles to the south, was completely buried with whiteout conditions.

Elsewhere around the Great Lakes region, the wind direction off of Lake Michigan promoted several bands of intense lake-effect snow, as opposed to the singular bands that formed off of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, respectively. As a result, much of the western half of the lower peninsula of Michigan received 6-12 inches of snow, with localized higher amounts. Around 2 feet of snow fell in the northwestern part of the lower peninsula, as well as in the southwestern part of the upper peninsula.

AccuWeather's winter weather experts had been warning about a significant and possibly historic lake-effect snow event days ahead of time. Forecasters noted mild lake water, bitterly cold air aloft and generally uniform wind direction through the lower part of the atmosphere as contributing factors to the extraordinary snowfall totals predicted.

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