Buffalo Snowfall: What Happens to Make it Pour Snow?

Posted on November 26, 2014 by SnowBlowerSource

The recent enormous snowfall in Buffalo was sobering for a number of reasons: it caused deaths, closed major roadways, ground much of the city to a halt, and showed the world that no matter how snowy a city is in the winter, Mother Nature can always find a way to top it. But with the feet and feet that fell in Buffalo, one question comes to mind: how is it possible for so much snow to fall in one place at one time? For that answer, Snow Blower Source turns to a number of different sources.

The Geographical Location of Buffalo

Buffalo is in an area that receives what’s commonly known as “lake effect snow“. Although most of us have heard that term before, not many can define exactly what this lake effect is and why it causes such huge amounts of snow each year. For lake effect snow to happen, a number of factors have to converge all at once and with Buffalo being right on Lake Erie, it’s pretty much in the exact center of this perfect storm.

It’s on the leeward — or downwind — shore of Lake Erie, which is one of the five Great Lakes and one of the biggest lakes in the world.

Lake Erie is warmed during the summer and lags behind land and air in the fall and winter when it comes to cooling down. It takes a couple to a few months for the lake to cool down to its average low temperatures, while the air does it almost instantaneously and the ground follows soon after.

Because the air coolest the first and quickest, it blows across the lake (also cooling it). The warmth from the water “excites” the cold air — or gives it energy — and this energy is released as water vapor. Think of when you get out of the shower and are covered in warm water, while the surrounding air is cold. You shiver (energy) and that movement slightly warms the water, and the water behaves by coming off you in vapor.

If the air is cold enough, the water vapor won’t stay in its gaseous state and it’ll turn into a solid…or snow.

Lastly, warm masses rise. Warm masses contain molecules that ping pong off each other in great excitement, and rise above cold masses, which, because their molecules “huddle together” and don’t move much, tend to go lower. If this warm mass gets high enough and the air is cold enough, it snows.

Life After Winter in a Snow Belt Area

If you’ve ever spent a good enough time in Europe, you know their springs tend to start in March, not late May as in Buffalo. This is because they don’t have huge lakes to contend with and the wind directions are vastly different.

However, as we talked about above, air and water temperatures don’t heat and cool at the same rates with there always being a lag. Because air is less dense than water, it takes less energy to move the molecules; less molecules = easier to heat and cool, more molecules = longer to heat and cool. Water is denser than air, so it’ll take longer to heat and cool. By the time spring rolls around, the air is ready to warm up (and it does) but Lake Erie needs a bit more time to get there. All you have to do is go swimming in Lake Erie in May and again in September to notice the difference.

But despite all this, Buffalo between November to April tends to be a very snowy time. It’s in just about the perfect location for massive and long-lasting amounts of snow, while areas like Tahoe are experiencing some of the worst snow shortages in decades. And because Buffalo is one of these “perfect storm areas”, it’s why the city makes the news so much more often than most other cities. It always snows a lot here, but a heavy one, like the 6+ feet it received, is more newsworthy than a place like Kentucky getting “snowed in” with half a foot of snow (as unusual as it may be for the area).