Here comes the snow

Winter is coming and there's nothing anyone can do to stop it.

All you can do is prepare for what's ahead.

Hey Buffalo, did you get enough snow yesterday or you want some more?

These shots were on I 90 near Buffalo just a different storm.

 

I used to drive a truck through Buffalo to Syracuse every day and saw some pretty ominous lake effect snow events like they just had yesterday which stranded motorists for more than ten hours along Interstate 90.

 

One particular trip through that stretch I saw more cars and trucks in the ditch or stuck in snow drifts across the road than I saw actually driving, fortunately I had a heavy load and was driving a ten wheeler that could drive through almost anything.

 

The amazing thing about these Lake Effect snow storms is that thirty miles up-wind on the other side of the lake, it can be a bright sunny day although very very cold as in the scene below which dumped four feet of snow on Buffalo in just a few hours.

 

In this scene, a cold wind is at your back blowing directly over Lake Ontario towards Buffalo, first forming streamers of what looks like steam rising off the lake and quickly forming a thick cloud almost like a dense fog bank just hanging several hundred yards off shore. That "fog bank" is the origin of an intense lake effect snow band that paralyzed Buffalo for days about fifteen years ago. I took this shot on returning from Syracuse after spending about three hours getting past Buffalo Airport.

Be ready for whatever you may encounter in winter driving or better yet, stay home and keep warm and toasty.

That's what I plan to do.