24° and Overcast
Image
I admit occasionally gloating to friends back in Clarence, Alden, Lancaster and Amherst about how we, in Niagara Falls, live in an alternate weather universe.
That was true on Thursday morning but in a different way – my friends down south and out east have 5 inches. We had 9 by morning and 12 by late afternoon.
It was too much for the Niagara Falls Department of Public Works. Every available driver was out and lots of overtime was on the books. In fact, they had more equipment than drivers. Even main roads like Lewiston Road didn’t see a plow until 4:15 p.m.
Take a drive anywhere else, on the Thruway, or in the Town of Niagara or Lewiston and it was much the same. No salt shortage, no equipment shortage, if anything too much snow and not enough drivers.
Here’s the reason for our excess snow, as shared by hyper-local meteorologist Kristian Ruggiero:
It is “all about where the ‘deformation zone’ formed on the back side of the low pressure system. So ultimately, the first “chunk” of snow was not lake-effect based, but from a larger-scale system.
“These don’t hit any particular area harder than another like lake-effect does, based on their placement along the lake. With these larger low pressure systems, it’s all about placement of the low, and the placement was more ideal for Niagara and Orleans. “Add on top of that the northerly wind coming off of Lake Ontario as the winds shifted today, and it was the south shore of that lake that got a few-several extra inches this time around. Not the most common of scenarios, but I’ve seen similar at times before!
“If you REALLY wanna learn a little, go to ChatGPT and ask it what a deformation zone is during a snowstorm on the backside of a low pressure system. Too much for me to type right now, but it’s pretty cool how our atmosphere works!. Lots of ‘stretching’ and compressing, etc
I tell guests on tours our reason for living in Western New York is the weather – to paraphrase Steinbeck, I have to live somewhere with weather, climate is not enough. Our natural disasters melt.
Those things said, for the first time in 5 winters, on Thursday I could finally justify our 8-horse, 50-year-old Ariens snowthrower. It felt manly to use the oversized blower. Our lot is narrow enough and our driveway short enough that for anything less than 6-inches I usually shovel.
Having and oversized snowblower is like driving a lifted diesel F-250 because it makes me feel more manly. I might be compensating.
It was late afternoon when I wondered if it was time for a walk.
Gord got the zoomies so we headed to the gorge and let him bound joyfully through the virgin carpet. No one had come before us. The snow was so thick that, in hindsight, I regretted not choosing snowshoes but hey, first world problems.
