Christmas storm could be “Paralyzing” for Buffalo

[BillsFan4]

This is insane!

 

I can’t even see out the windows on the 2nd floor of my house. The snow is piled up covering all 3 of the windows on the front of my house. Easily 5+ feet of snow just on my roof.

 

I can’t even see my cars (smaller SUV’s). The only thing visible is the roof racks!

 

my dog needed to go out but there was a snow drift literally covering my entire door. I had to climb out a bedroom window to get outside. That was fun trying to get my body to bend through the window. I’m getting old…😂

 

Then I got to my snowblower. Thankfully that was pretty easy. But of course it wouldn’t f’n start. I tried for a good 20 minutes. Wasn’t happening. I think it’s just froze. I’ll try again later or tomorrow.

 

So I just shoveled out a path to the side door so I can open it. It legit took me over an hour just to shovel a 5 foot long path to the door. I had to clear a good 7ft snow drift from in front of the door. We have a gate and it kind of caught all the snow, which all ended up in front of the door.

 

The real issue is how packed this snow is. I don’t think I’ve ever seen snow this packed. It was almost impossible to shovel. 
 

That first pic is out the 2nd floor front windows. 2nd pic is out the first floor front window.

Edited December 24, 2022 by BillsFan4

[ExiledInIllinois]

Everybody stay safe! Sunny and nice here, but a cold +3°F... Should be warmer by game time. Good thing that the game is away. 

 

Merry Christmas Eve!

 

[Be on your best behavior: My Polish grandmother would always say "how you act on Christmas Eve is how you will act all year!]

 

GoBills!

[muppy]

Genesee County Travel Ban is in effect. Reports of people calling to be rescued and 6 hours later help arrives.

 

It's nasty outside there. Lord have Mercy

[Process]

4 minutes ago, BillsFan4 said:

This is insane!

 

I can’t even see out the windows on the 2nd floor of my house. The snow is piled up covering all 3 of the windows on the front of my house. Easily 5+ feet of snow just on my roof.

 

I can’t even see my cars (smaller SUV’s). The only thing visible is the roof racks!

 

my dog needed to go out but there was a snow drift literally covering my entire door. I had to climb out a bedroom window to get outside. That was fun trying to get my body to bend through the window. I’m getting old…😂

 

Then I got to my snowblower. Thankfully that was pretty easy. But of course it wouldn’t f’n start. I tried for a good 20 minutes. Wasn’t happening. I think it’s just froze. I’ll try again later or tomorrow.

 

So I just shoveled out a path to the side door so I can open it. It legit took me over an hour just to shovel a 5 foot long path to the door. I had to clear a good 7ft snow drift from in front of the door. We have a gate and it kind of caught all the snow, which all ended up in front of the door.

 

The real issue is how packed this snow is. I don’t think I’ve ever seen snow this packed. It was almost impossible to shovel. 
 

That first pic is out the 2nd floor front windows. 2nd pic is out the first floor front window.

Not even going to bother touching the snowblower until late tomorrow evening. What a nightmare that's going to be 

 

Fortunately the way it's blowing at my house the front isn't too bad, I can actually see the half of my driveway towards the house.

 

Backyard i have 2-6 feet throughout 

[muppy]

Is power been a constant or are there outages/ issues that you know of in that regard?

[ExiledInIllinois]

Glimmer of hope..  It's gonna be close to 55° next Saturday on NewYear'sEve!

 

 

[BillsFan4]

10 minutes ago, muppy said:

Is power been a constant or are there outages/ issues that you know of in that regard?

My uncle in Cheektowaga has been without power for over 24 hours now. And my other aunt + uncle out by the lake (Angola) have also been without power since yesterday afternoon. They have a generator but it won’t stay running.

 

They live right on the lake. If you’ve ever been out there in Angola the houses are on a cliff. So it’s about 25-30ft down to the lake (they have a tunnel in their basement that runs to the beach/lake). My aunt said yesterday the waves were splashing over the top of the cliff onto their house. Crazy!

 

There’s been quite a few power outages around here. 

[BillsFan4]

18 minutes ago, Process said:

Not even going to bother touching the snowblower until late tomorrow evening. What a nightmare that's going to be 

 

Fortunately the way it's blowing at my house the front isn't too bad, I can actually see the half of my driveway towards the house.

 

Backyard i have 2-6 feet throughout 

Yeah it’s going to be a nightmare with how packed down and heavy it is, and how tall the snow drifts are.

 

I have one small section of my driveway that’s clear. But the rest has huge snow drifts. The snow drift in front of my garage is so tall I can’t even see my garage door. Then I have a good 6-7ft snow drift in front of my gate + side door. Then more on the other side of the gate running most of the way to the street.

 

I pulled both cars into the driveway but that may have been a mistake because they caught a ton of snow and caused huge snow drifts. Both cars are buried to the roof. The cars in the street aren’t buried too bad. But they’ll get buried by the snow plows. Not looking forward to clearing the snow the plows dump at the end of the driveway. It’s going to get dumped on top of the 3/4/5ft that’s already at the end of the driveway unless I can get out there to clear it before then, which seems doubtful.

[Big Turk]

25 minutes ago, muppy said:

Is power been a constant or are there outages/ issues that you know of in that regard?

 

Lot of power outages in the area but luckily not here!

[ColoradoBills]

52 minutes ago, muppy said:

Is power been a constant or are there outages/ issues that you know of in that regard?

 

Muppy, I told you about my goddaughter is an ER nurse an ECMC and has to leave for work in a couple of hours.

My brother (her father) was worried about her having to drive but we just got good news that the National Guard

is going to bring her to work in a Humvee.  

 

Power went out at my mom's senior community but luckily, it's back on again.  Lots of worries about the older folk.

Us in Colorado Springs hardly got any snow and wind, just cold but warming up today.

[muppy]

10 minutes ago, ColoradoBills said:

 

Muppy, I told you about my goddaughter is an ER nurse an ECMC and has to leave for work in a couple of hours.

My brother (her father) was worried about her having to drive but we just got good news that the National Guard

is going to bring her to work in a Humvee.  

 

Power went out at my mom's senior community but luckily, it's back on again.  Lots of worries about the older folk.

Us in Colorado Springs hardly got any snow and wind, just cold but warming up today.

a huge relief she will be able to work her shift and NOT have to drive. The power can take a while to come back. Ive been concerned about that.

 

I recall a few bad storms when we lived in colo spgs. The main concern as I recall were bursting pipes. And cars not starting.  But in a few days back to sunny and bright. I loved me some colo spgs hermano. This was circa 1980s

 

 

Edited December 24, 2022 by muppy

[Wacka]

First vehicle I have heard going down my street since 8 AM yesterday. Is a highlift. I am on a county road in Cheektowaga. They are now doing the other side. May be my brother who plows with the  county highway dept.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Wacka

[Wacka]

Looking out the window just before the Billsgame started. Like a switch, the wind picked up and the plow sitting a few doors down disappeared into the blown ng snow. The  lare effect is moving back south.

 

Edited December 24, 2022 by Wacka

[muppy]

a VICTORY TOAST to all  ..........BILLS CLINCH AFC- EAST CHAMPIONSHIP!~!~!!!!!

 

One huge positive in a crappy weather day Indeed!

 

GO BILLS

[May Day 10]

I've never seen Grand Island walloped like this.

[The Jokeman]

The drifts on my front lawn are crazy almost 4-5 feet tall yet part of my driveway is just dusted. 

[Draconator]

I've mentioned before, I work at Yahoo. They have a server farm in Lockport. If you go on anything Yahoo or AOL on the East Coast from Maine to Key West, it comes out of Lockport. 

 

Usually, the day before Christmas is super slow. Today? Not so much. I work for the Incident Management team. When there's an outage of any kind, they get a hold of our team either through Slack or email. Anything from a server issue to a major issue impacting a large number of users, or high dollar amounts of losses. 

Today was a major issue. 

The server buildings are called "chicken coops". Long buildings with a high top that allows airflow throughout the building. Lockport and Western New York were chosen because of the cool air during the winter months. The airflow allows just air into the vents and keeps rain out. Well, the Blizzard of 22 was too smart for that. The wind blew snow through the air vents, got into the building, turned into water, and was dripping directly onto a Universal Power Supply that supplied power to over 400 servers. The "UPS" then started to short out but was still running for the time being. If it completely went out before we had a chance to transfer data to other server farms or take the servers out of rotation in a systematic way where it would have no impact, Yahoo on the East coast would have been down, including Fantasy Football, Yahoo Finance, you name it. 

 

What had to happen is our entire team who was working today had to page and call out to the on-calls of over 45 teams who operated those over 400 servers. They either had to take the servers out of rotation or transfer the data on those servers to the other 2 server farms Yahoo has in Nebraska and Washington State. With this being the day before Christmas, not all the on-calls were immediately available. After about 7 hours, we got a hold of all the on-calls, they did their thing to transfer data or take the servers out of rotation. The only facilities guy who was able to make it in powered down the servers. After that was done, he powered down the universal power supply. That is offline until Tuesday. But we're operational. The only impact is a small number of Yahoo email users who had their accounts on those servers may not see old emails. 

Edited December 25, 2022 by Draconator

[Big Turk]

Buffalo closing in on the snowiest ever October-November-December in recorded history. Current record is 95.9 inches in 2000. Right now under 10 inches away from that and probably looking at a good 6-7 hours of moderate to heavy snow at between 1-2+" per hour. Coin flip on breaking that record before dawn tomorrow.

Edited December 25, 2022 by Big Turk

[Big Turk]

Currently watching The Day After Tomorrow...seems pretty appropriate after the last 48 hours.

Edited December 25, 2022 by Big Turk

[TBBills]

On 12/22/2022 at 2:33 PM, Fleezoid said:

I think global warming was just a fad. 

Global warming is the intensity of the storms we get. As our world warms the storms and Temps become more extreme.

[Process]

Check your attics....just took a peek at mine. Full of snow. 

[Buffalo716]

30 minutes ago, Process said:

Check your attics....just took a peek at mine. Full of snow. 

Mine is good 

 

But everything outside is a mess

[Big Turk]

43 inches officially at the airport as of 7am this morning...

 

Puts us a little under 93" for the year. Should get enough to break the Oct-Nov-Dec  snowfall record by tomorrow night.

 

UPDATE: apparently we got a few inches from somewhere else and now have 95.0" for the year. 89.9" as of midnight(37.9" storm total at that point) and got an addition 5.1" after that.

Edited December 25, 2022 by Big Turk

[Draconator]

My son-in-law works for the Thruway Authority. 

 

They currently can't put salt down on the Thruway, because the salt has frozen inside the trucks blocking the opening to spread the salt on the roadway.

[Not at the table Karlos]

I really feel these records are bull. It hardly rained before the storm and we've gotten a lot more snow in 24 hours. 

[Big Turk]

6 minutes ago, Not at the table Karlos said:

I really feel these records are bull. It hardly rained before the storm and we've gotten a lot more snow in 24 hours. 

 

We literally set a rainfall record and a snowfall record on the same day on the 23rd. Not sure what you are referring to.

[Not at the table Karlos]

8 minutes ago, Big Turk said:

 

We literally set a rainfall record and a snowfall record on the same day on the 23rd. Not sure what you are referring to.

We've definitely had more snow than 22 inches in a day. Multiple times. And when did it rain that hard? It was a very light rain for a short period of time at best. 

 

This seems like one of these all time football records that are set every game every week.

Edited December 25, 2022 by Not at the table Karlos

[Beck Water]

6 hours ago, Process said:

Check your attics....just took a peek at mine. Full of snow. 

 

How does that occur?

[Big Turk]

6 minutes ago, Not at the table Karlos said:

We've definitely had more snow than 22 inches in a day. Multiple times. And when did it rain that hard? It was a very light rain for a short period of time at best. 

 

This seems like one of these all time football records that are set every game every week.

 

The record was literally for that day, ie Dec 23rd. There has never been more than 22.3" measured on December 23rd.  There have been 7 times where we received more than 20" of snow in a day.  Two of them have been this year and 3 were from 2001.

[Not at the table Karlos]

2 minutes ago, Big Turk said:

 

The record was literally for that day, ie Dec 23rd. There has never been more than 22.3" measured on December 23rd.  There have been 7 times where we received more than 20" of snow in a day.  Two of them have been this year and 3 were from 2001.

Ok so it is just like those stupid cherry picked football stats. 

[BillsFan4]

Pics looking out my front door. I’m 6’ tall and I’m standing with the camera near chest height. I have no idea how I’m going to clear all this snow!

 

 

 

 

[Big Turk]

20 minutes ago, Not at the table Karlos said:

Ok so it is just like those stupid cherry picked football stats. 

 

No, it's the way weather records have been kept since 1878 here.

[Process]

50 minutes ago, Beck Water said:

 

How does that occur?

It shouldn't. Snow blowing horizontally through vents I'm assuming I got to get up there today and take a better look.

[BillsFan4]

All I want for Christmas is a snow removal service! 😂

[Beck Water]

15 minutes ago, Process said:

It shouldn't. Snow blowing horizontally through vents I'm assuming I got to get up there today and take a better look.

 

Yikes.

[ExiledInIllinois]

There's a snowplow stuck on my MiL's street... Hang on till Friday.   Rain and 50°.

 

I know it's the Holidays, but why are people traveling. Think the pandemic could have got them into right frame of mind and not venture out... No reason for stuck cars in 2022. 

 

Game Monday in Cincy... 60° & rain.

 

Viva la weather!

9 minutes ago, BillsFan4 said:

All I want for Christmas is a snow removal service! 😂

Cancel state income tax and make the South pay for it. Works for Florida & Texas. 

[That's No Moon]

10 hours ago, Process said:

Check your attics....just took a peek at mine. Full of snow. 

That's not ideal. Good luck with that.

[BillsFan4]

I got my snow blower started. Phew! That’s a relief.

 

It was just froze up. I used a heat gun on it for a bit and got it running. Then let it run to thaw out. Had to keep adjusting the choke knob for the first 5 minutes or so to keep it from stalling.

 

Then once I got it started the drive and reverse were frozen so it was still useless. Used the heat gun on the drive case + shaft and rolled it back+forth. That eventually got it working.
 

Made a path to the garage (so I can get to the extra fuel and propane heater) and to my gate then quit. No reason to kill myself clearing the end of my driveway. I can take my time. My street is packed with 3-4ft. of snow and 6-7ft snow drifts and the snow is solid as a rock. They’re going to have to clear it with loaders/bobcats/excavators (etc). No way a plow gets through that snow. So it’ll be days before it’s clear.

 

Clearing this snow is crazy! I’ve never seen snow this packed and solid. 

[EmotionallyUnstable]

2 minutes ago, BillsFan4 said:

I got my snow blower started. Phew! That’s a relief.

 

It was just froze up. I used a heat gun on it for a bit and got it running. Then let it run to thaw out. Had to keep adjusting the choke knob for the first 5 minutes or so to keep it from stalling.

 

Then once I got it started the drive and reverse were frozen so it was still useless. Used the heat gun on the drive case + shaft and rolled it back+forth. That eventually got it working.
 

Made a path to the garage (so I can get to the extra fuel and propane heater) and to my gate then quit. No reason to kill myself clearing the end of my driveway. I can take my time. My street is packed with 3-4ft. of snow and 6-7ft snow drifts and the snow is solid as a rock. They’re going to have to clear it with loaders/bobcats/excavators (etc). No way a plow gets through that snow. So it’ll be days before it’s clear.

 

Clearing this snow is crazy! I’ve never seen snow this packed and solid. 

Not sure where you are. In Clarence, the drifts are making snow blowing impossible… as someone mentioned, we had high lifts down our streets yesterday but nothing since. I’m about 1/3 out of our driveway, and likely through the heaviest and biggest piles. Going back out for another round now.

[US Egg]

Steady snow since drifted back about 8 last night.

 

Thank goodness for FaceTime, face to face Xmas with grandkids.

 

Think my wife’s going through some sort of not cooking Xmas dinner withdrawal.