If you have any plans for Friday, cancel them. That’s the word from Erie County officials as the snow possibility starts to climb beyond three-feet toward four feet.
The snow has begun to come down in Southern Tier counties and Erie’s Southtowns, and is supposed to come down as two or three inches an hour through Saturday and continue into Sunday with lesser snow fall.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said Wednesday the big concern is that the storm will hammer the heavily populated Buffalo metro area, where it can be hard to plow snow because there aren’t always places to put it. He said Albany has already sent state plows and more are on the way.
“The lake effect snow warning starts at 7 p.m. Thursday and goes to 1 p.m. on Sunday," Poloncarz said. "Heavy lake effect snow expected. Total accumulation of two-to-three-feet is expected, though that can grow and is expected even potentially to be larger.”
By Friday morning, the county executive speculates the area will be shut down, with roads hit with hours of snow, schools likely closed and many stores not opening because of bad roads and streets.
Asked about the scheduled Buffalo Bills game on Sunday, Poloncarz was non-committal.
"Snow will continue through Sunday but the worst part of it will be through 7 p.m. on Saturday. The problem might be the roads around the facility," he said.
The storm is hitting on the eighth anniversary of the 2014 “Snowvember.” That snow was so bad a Bills game against the New York Jets was moved to Detroit.
The county executive said it’s up to the Bills to move snow on parking lots and the stadium and if the storm lives up to its billing, that would be an awful lot of snow to move somewhere.
