LOCKPORT, N.Y. -- In the Buffalo, area we expect snow as December starts to come up on the calendar. We also expect that first real snowfall to be a bad one. The rest of the country sees us on television and wonders why or how we do it. To be honest, there is really nothing better than a Buffalo snow storm once you get the mess cleared out. The area looks beautiful after a snow storm, but during the storm things can get dicey.
On Tuesday night, Buffalo-area residents went to bed with what is known as a "lake effect snow warning." To those that are unfamiliar,
The snow hit in the early morning hours of Dec. 1, and it was all over the Buffalo area. The further south you get from downtown Buffalo, the worse the snow gets. That is OK because the southern part of the Buffalo area is ski country. So they love it when it snows like this. The ski areas got over a foot of snow by noon, and the slopes were open the next day.
The city of Buffalo itself did not get hit as hard as the southern and northern suburbs did. In what is known as the Southern Tier of western New York, there were six inches of snow on people's cars by the time the rush hour started, and the snow was still falling. It was falling so hard and so fast that the plows did not even bother to venture out until the next morning. Traffic was snarled and many of the freeway routes around Buffalo were closed.
In the northern suburbs, the story was much different. I live just 20 minutes north of Buffalo in a little suburb called Lockport. We were getting the same big, fluffy snow flakes that the Southern Tier was getting, but it was still fairly warm up here. The ground was also still kind of warm, which creates pretty treacherous conditions. What happens is that the first couple of hours of snow fall melt when it hits the ground. The next hour or so turns to slush on top of the wet snow that just fell, and then the next couple of hours are real snow accumulation. That means you have an inch or two of heavy slush covered with four or five inches of heavy snow.
The snow kept falling all morning and then started to taper off around the middle of the afternoon. I decided to head out and shovel my driveway for two reasons: First, so that my son and my wife could park their cars when they got home. Second, colder air was coming, and if those two inches of slush are allowed to freeze then you have real problems on your hands.
It is always odd to shovel the first real snowfall of the year in the Buffalo area because the air tends to be warmer than you would expect. I bundled myself up expecting to brave the elements, only to be met by 35 to 40 degree temperatures. But, even with those temperatures, the snow was not melting.
I reached down with my snow shovel and began to move the snow from my sidewalks and driveway. It is exactly like shoveling wet concrete. The consistency is the same, and the weight is the same. You also find yourself shoveling water some of the time as not all of the melted snow gets covered with slush and regular snow. The whole scene was extremely bizarre.
It took about an hour, but I finally got everything cleared out. It was just in time too because the snow started again and the temperatures started to drop. Everything that was not shoveled would be a sheet of ice by morning.
But, like I said, we are used to these things around here. So when you see news stories on the television about Buffalo braving another snow storm, don't feel sorry for us. To be honest, we feel sorry for you because most people in the country do not realize how little work it really is to enjoy the beauty of winter.
source: news.yahoo.com
