Big lake-effect snow expected for parts of northern MI

A lake effect snow warning will be in effect from 7 a.m. Sunday to 7 a.m. Tuesday for Wyoming and southern Erie counties.

Heavy lake-effect bands set up for the Great Lakes Region are highly impacting areas southeast of Lakes Erie and Ontario, making for risky travel conditions through Tuesday morning. Captain Gregory says “The reason for the issue of the travel advisory is the increased volume of accidents that we have had to handle through our dispatch and our road patrol and New York State Police have handled somewhere in the vicinity of 30 accidents today”.

The National Weather Service Office at Buffalo Niagara International Airport in Cheektowaga reported an official snowfall of 5.7 inches Sunday evening.

“A cold northwest flow over the Great Lakes will lead to heavy lake-effect snow bands early this week”, AccuWeather Meteorologist Ed Vallee said.

Livingston County is expected to escape unscathed, with snow showers and accumulations of less than an inch forecast.

The other component to this Arctic outbreak will of course be the bitterly cold wind chills.

Westerly winds of 15 to 25 miles per hour, with gusts of up to 40 miles per hour, will produce significant blowing and drifting snow, contribution to the already hazardous driving conditions.

-Wind chill readings as low as -10 to 0.

Combining the bitter cold with the snow, we have another potentially unsafe situation on area roadways tonight, Sunday, and Monday.

-There is a winter weather advisory in effect until noon Monday. Accumulations of 11 to 21 inches are possible in the most persistent lake snows. Southwest winds of 5 to 15 miles per hour could cause visibility to be as low as a quarter-mile at times.