On the busiest travel weekend of the year, Central New York got its first true taste of winter. We put out the warnings a few days ahead of time and decided to go with a 2-4” accumulation for most people during the afternoon on Thanksgiving.  

Snow began north of the Thurway in some areas on Wednesday night, a little earlier than expected. As Thursday came around, snow gradually began to work into the rest of Central New York. It fell mostly light, but as the afternoon came around, a cold front approached our area and helped to kick the snow up a notch. Snow quickly went from light, to heavy at times. A general 2-4” of snow fell rather quickly across most of Central New York. A few locations picked up 4-6” in Herkimer County and southern Oneida County. There were even some reports of thunder in the Valley and the North Country! As the front came through, winds quickly shifted around into the northwest and cold air began pouring in. Temperatures, which had been in the low to mid 30s for most of the day, began to tumble back below freezing and through the 20s during the afternoon. Roads, which had been wet, became snow covered and very icy. There were numerous reports of accidents across area roadways. Fortunately, none of them were too serious, but Thanksgiving dinner travel was pretty treacherous!  

As soon as the main area of snow began to move out, a lake effect snow band developed across northern Oneida and southern Lewis Counties….  

Our forecast…

After looking at things during the day or so before the snow began, we became pretty concerned with a serious lake effect event. Our snowfall forecast was for 6-12”+ followed by 5-10”+ in the traditional snowbelts up in northern Oneida and southern Lewis County. We opted to go with 3-6” overnight around that to just north of Rome, because it appeared that the band would lift north and then come crashing back south by morning, possibly into the immediate Rome-Utica vicinity. Not good for Black Friday shoppers! We then opted to go with 4-8” on Friday for most of Oneida County outside the snowbelt to just north of the Thruway, including Rome. We surrounded that with a stripe of 3-6” for much of the rest of the area.  

How it panned out…

By about 4 or 5 in the evening, the band of snow really began to intensify as winds were due west-east across Lake Ontario, while also tapping some moisture from Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. Eventually the band stretched across the entire length of the lake! Snow was coming down extremely heavy in this timeframe. Our skywatcher in West Leyden reported many cars off the road up in southern Lewis County. Between 6 and 10 the band basically stayed put, but began to slowly drift north, almost out of Oneida County. Snow piled up over a foot in some parts of the snowbelt by midnight. Over the next few hours, as the core of cold air approached, the band shifted north in earnest and made it all the way up to Watertown. Around 2 or 3 in the morning, this transient band began to push back south. As 5 AM approached, the band basically put on the brakes and setup shop across northern Oneida County. The southern fringe of the band just kissed the north side of Rome and up toward Remsen and Steuben, but areas from Glenmore, Westdale and Camden over to Ava and Boonville were clobbered in this timeframe. The band appeared to be energized to its strongest by a feature in the upper atmosphere that showed up on satellite during the morning. Once that moved out, the band settled back down to how it had been most of the night. For the rest of the day, the band gradually lifted back north, not before dumping 15-30” of snow across much of northern Oneida and Lewis Counties.

 The forecast worked out well, except between Rome and the Thruway where nothing really got going on Friday like we had thought. The wind direction was about as close as you can get without reaching us. A close call, but certainly one that Black Friday shoppers in the immediate Rome-Utica metro area were happy did not come to fruition!

 A very special thank you to our skywatchers that reported in, even during the holiday weekend! It makes our job a lot easier and our forecasts much more accurate. We’re very appreciative!

Snowfall Totals
(from Skywatchers and National Weather Service Public Information Statements)
Thanksgiving Clipper and Ensuing Lake Effect
11/24-11/25