WBFO News: Okay, so can you talk a little bit about the storm we are currently experiencing?
Don Paul: Well, it is another Whopper. And it is actually behaving a little differently than expected last evening when it organized earlier than most of our computer guidance indicated. But what's led to some really amazing snow totals and short periods of time is the extreme cold has allowed the snow to become very fluffy. People often hear a cliché, “one inch of rain equals 12 inches of snow.” Most of the time that's wrong and it actually depends on what the vertical temperature profile is. When you get this cold, the ratio this morning at the airport, the observatory in the National Weather Service shows 25 inches of snow to one inch of liquid, and so you get much heftier totals. The actual weight of the snow is lighter per shovelful, but it piles up more when there's more airspace between the plates. So that West Seneca had picked up 30 inches by 8:30 this morning.
WBFO: What's the correlation between these storms and the lack of parts of Lake Erie being frozen?
Paul: Well, there's a correlation. The lake has been going unfrozen more often in recent, not just the last five years, but in general than used to be the case in the 60s in the 70s. And that is definitely related to global warming. And when you have a warm open lake, some people assume that that automatically means you're going to get a storm like the one we have now. And there have been some winters where you had a warm open lake but never really got the arctic air. And without the arctic air, the warm lake can't do much. And I just looked yesterday, 2011-2012, that winter the airport only received 39 inches of snow where Buffalo's average is about 97. But now we do have an arctic blast and that combined with a lake temperature that's still well above freezing is a classic ingredient for this kind of an event.
WBFO: And how does this storm and the storm we got last week, how do they compare to the Christmas storm from 2022?
Paul: Well, we tend to obsess over how many inches fell. But the impact of the storm, when you have strong winds changes dramatically as opposed to Christmas week. 2001. Buffalo in that week got 82 inches of snow from three separate lake effect storms. But the winds were amazingly pretty light that week. And so, while it was paralyzing that week, it didn't have the kind of impact that the Christmas blizzard of 2022 had, which wracked us with damaging winds that produce massive power outages in incredible cold and with the amazing amounts of snow. And this storm, we've got enough wind to make wideouts and make travel treacherous and there are driving bans again in many localities. But it doesn't compare for total impact to the December Christmas weekend storm where, as most people know, we lost 47 people. And this one. I haven't seen any fatalities yet. I suppose there still could be a few but it's not going to add up to that kind of tragedy. And a storm that is still a generational storm. When that one started, I didn't think we'd end up having a higher death toll than the blizzard of ‘77, which was a ground Blizzard for the most part that was snow already on the ground and on the Lake Erie ice cover which was picked up by high winds. And so, all the counties were impacted by that, but there wasn't much new snow. The Christmas storm was new snow with high winds. And it was a storm unlike anything I've seen, and I'm an old guy.
WBFO: You mentioned that that storm was a once in a generation storm. And you also mentioned you know global warming our storms like the one we saw two years ago, are those going to be more of the norm?
Paul: We can expect to see episodic wintry outbreaks like this one, and occasionally like [Winter Storm Elliott]. And it is related, we believe. There's not total agreement on this. But when you have less temperature difference between the polar latitudes and the mid latitudes, the polar jet stream can slow down and weaken if there's not enough of a temperature contrast. And eventually, that polar vortex can get disrupted and stretched to the south. So, in the middle of another wise milder than average winter, you can get a few weeks or even just a week like that Christmas outbreak in 2022. That was very short lived and then the next week, our temperatures were way above average again. And next week, we'll be going back into the 40’s by Wednesday, and our temperatures are going to be well above average, average high this time of the year is around the freezing mark 31-32, will be well above that for days to come starting on Tuesday, and especially Wednesday, you can get these episodic outbreaks where the polar vortex stretches southward allows polar air to finally drop to the south. And then it tends to retreat again. And because we have a pretty strong El Nino, the probabilities are that went all is said and done, this winter will be milder than average. And when you say that on a day like this, it sounds crazy. But if I had said that, December 23, 2022, it would have sounded just as crazy. But that winter was milder than average.
WBFO: So, in the next few hours with this storm that we have, it seems to have shifted northward a little bit or it is shifting northwards. Is it supposed to come back down?
Paul: It will slide a little farther south by late in the afternoon. And I think it's going to get close to the city by the dinner hour if not over the city. But you know, we have these high resolution models, which are fantastic, but they're far from foolproof. So, I'm not that confident whether the band will be over the city enough. Well, we're not going to have much of an afternoon commute, I guess, because so many closings have occurred. But I'm not sure what hour it's going to get back to the city, but it will. And then there are some indications that it may slip a little south of the metro area in the middle of the night. Then tomorrow, the winds will be lighter. And we're going to have some widespread non-lake effect snow from a disturbance going by with an embedded band of lake effect snow from the local southwest breeze. That one won't be as intense as this one. But the big picture is the snow will be more manageable tomorrow than it was today. And then on Friday. We have some widespread snow from an area of low pressure, not lake effect, that's going to provide another two to four inches and as far as serious snow. That should do it but they'll still be some snow showers around on Saturday.
