CNN
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Heavy snowfall is expected to continue piling up in western New York state through Sunday after a historic storm saw the Buffalo area record record snowfall totaling more than 6 feet in some regions.
Just after 11 p.m. Saturday, the National Weather Service in Buffalo issued a special weather statement warning that a band of heavy snow accompanied by high winds was creating a “snow flurry” in western New York state. The group was moving south from the Buffalo and Rochester metropolitan areas, the weather service said.
“This heavy snow band is producing extremely heavy snow at the rate of 2 to 3 inches per hour,” he said. “Use extra caution if you must travel… Rapid changes in visibility and potentially slippery roads can lead to accidents.”
While the Buffalo area is used to dealing with heavy snowfall, this storm is producing “much more than what we usually receive,” Mayor Byron Brown told CNN on Saturday.
Erie County, which includes Buffalo, saw its most snowfall on record in a 24-hour period Saturday, according to Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz.
Since the snow started falling, two people have died from heart complications related to shoveling snow and attempting to clear it, he said.
While the heaviest snow slid south of the greater Buffalo area in southern Erie and Chautauqua counties overnight, an additional 6 to 18 inches is possible across the region, especially on higher ground. , said CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam.
Winds shifted more westerly on Sunday morning, meaning the heaviest bands of lake-effect snow are now south of the Buffalo impact zones from Cleveland to Dunkirk, New York. Buffalo is no longer under a lake effect snow warning, but remains under a winter weather advisory through Sunday evening for “blowing snow,” according to the weather service.
The heaviest snowfall on Sunday will occur east of Lake Ontario, where up to an additional foot of snow is forecast, with localized areas likely to see even more.
Winds could blow up to 45 mph in the Great Lakes region, which will lead to very cold conditions with temperatures in the low single digits of freezing.
Snowfall of more than 6 feet was recorded at two locations, according to the weather service. Orchard Park, where the NFL’s Buffalo Bills play, picked up 77.0 inches in 48 hours, and Natural Bridge, just east of Watertown, picked up 72.3 inches — historic numbers for the region.
The multi-day weather event made travel in the region difficult, triggering road closures, driving bans and flight cancellations the weekend before the Thanksgiving holiday.
On Saturday evening, the weather service warned that the latest cluster would make travel conditions difficult within minutes.
Nearly 400 citations have been issued to drivers who have been found in violation of area travel bans, Erie County Executive Poloncarz said.
“If you try to enter an area where a travel ban exists, you will meet a friendly New York State neighborhood soldier who will immediately give you a ticket for violating the travel ban,” Poloncarz said. .
Authorities are towing vehicles that are stuck on the side of the road or have been involved in accidents due to people traveling during the snowstorm, he said.
Air travelers aren’t faring much better, with dozens of flights in and out of Buffalo Niagara International Airport canceled due to worsening storm conditions, according to the website. ‘airport.
The airport set a daily snowfall record of 21.5 inches on Saturday, breaking the previous daily record of 7.6 inches set in 2014, the local weather bureau said.
This is the fifth-highest single-day snowfall total on record for Buffalo and the second-highest single-day snowfall total for the month of November.
This month is already Buffalo’s third snowiest November at the airport thanks to the storm, according to the local weather service office.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul touted the state’s storm preparedness on Saturday afternoon and said crews were working tirelessly to manage the situation.
“That’s the effort we’ve brought together: bringing together resources, people, equipment from all over New York State. And because we were so pre-emptive in this strike, we were able to avoid many tragedies,” Hochul said.
She thanked western New Yorkers for closing major freeways, enacting travel bans and staying home before the snow started falling, which helped prevent accidents, protect human life and to ensure roads are safe and unobstructed for emergency services, she said.
Hochul said she was doubling the number of New York National Guard members on the ground in Erie County to monitor residents and help with snow removal.
She also signs a request for federal reimbursement through a Federal Disaster Emergency Declaration.
Nearly 6 million people in four Great Lakes states (Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York) will remain under winter weather warning for much of Sunday.
Brown, Buffalo’s mayor, said the city could return to “some sense of normalcy” by Monday or Tuesday, assuming the worst of the storm passes by Sunday.
“It was a very unpredictable storm with bands of snow moving, back and forth, north to south,” Brown said. “The snow fell very quickly, very wet, very heavy.”