Significant snow expected in western and northern New York

Parts of northern and western New York braced Monday night for the start of a lake-effect snowstorm that could bring up to 2 feet of snow, and potentially as much as 30 inches in some areas, officials and forecasters said.

The worst conditions were likely to occur late Monday into Tuesday, with snow rates exceeding 3 inches an hour within the heaviest snow bands, making travel “very difficult to impossible,” the National Weather Service office in Buffalo, New York, said.

The storm, which is expected to have winds of up to 35 mph, will affect the Eastern Lake Ontario region.

“The greatest accumulations will remain south of Watertown and across the Tug Hill Plateau,” which is east of Lake Ontario, forecasters said. “Areas outside of the lake effect will largely see nothing more than a passing snow shower at times.”

The Weather Service said a lake-effect snow warning would be in effect for Jefferson, Lewis and Oswego counties until 7 a.m. Wednesday.

A warning was in effect for northern Oneida and Onondaga Counties, including Syracuse, from 10 a.m. Tuesday to 7 a.m. Wednesday, with accumulations of 5 to 9 inches in the forecast.

Warnings were also posted in Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Wyoming and southern Erie counties, with 8 to 16 inches of snow likely. The storm was also expected to affect parts of Hamilton and northern Herkimer counties.

But forecasters said the Buffalo metro area, which was paralyzed by a lake-effect snow event right before Christmas last year, is likely to be spared.

“The most hazardous weather conditions will be in the areas where lake-effect snow bands form and produce a lot of snow in a short period, which will hamper travel in some places for the next day or so,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement Sunday.

The setup for the storm comes when the Great Lakes are warm and have not yet frozen over for the season, and a strong wind blows across them. Narrow bands of snow can then quickly pile up, making travel especially treacherous, even in a region where residents are accustomed to severe winter weather.

On Monday morning, shoppers were flocking to the Lowville Farmers Co-Op in Lowville, New York, about an hour north of Rome, New York, in preparation for the storm, said the store’s comptroller, Jennifer Garcia.

“It’s been busy this morning already,” she said. “People are like: ‘We got to get in. We have to get gloves. We got to get hats. We got to get snow pants.’ ”

She said residents pay closer attention when the forecast calls for lake-effect snow because it is hard to predict where it will be most intense.

She recalled that during one such event last year, workers coming from within a few miles of the store found themselves either smothered with snow or having none at all, depending entirely on which direction they were coming from.

“You just don’t know how those bands will set,” she said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.