Major Snowstorm Hits Buffalo - This is Oct, right?

[markus]

From the Weather channel... posted at 6:31 EDT this morning:
An historic and major lake effect snow event will begin to die down across the Buffalo area this morning, after leaving some parts of that area buried under 2 feet of snow. Overnight, snow fell at a rate of 2 to 4 inches per hour, with thunder snow producing frequent lightning. In addition to the amount of snow, this has been a very heavy wet snow, resulting in over 250,000 people without power across the Buffalo area.YIKES! Hope all is well with akip!

[frizgolf]

The kid's prolly loving it.

[Nellie Bly]

I love how this is news out here in Ohio, in Buffalo they're probably just saying "here we go again...". Maybe this means the thaw will actually come in March for once? ;)

Happy winter akip! (http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061013/NEWS01/61013002)

[Breeze]

I suppose this would be a good time to mention that it's 67 here right now, with an expected high of 88 this afternoon. :D

[akip]

The kid's prolly loving it.

yep, they are jumpin for joy, but we've gotta keep em out of the street for now---tree limbs still crashing and power lines under stress and looking ready to snap. i keep hoping those power lines hold, but there's a huge weighted down tree branch putting pressure on one of the lines from the house.

anyway, we're up to 200,000 customers without power. traffic ban (though the spouse is plotting to try to get into work to survey any damage).

we're supposed to have a big meltdown, but it's still snowing, though not heavily. looks like about a foot out there.

i described the scene last night here:

http://www.woxy.com/boards/showthread.php?t=36047&page=3

this is an old neighborhood with tree lined streets, and the trees were full of green leaves that caught the wet snow---i can't exaggerate the damage around here. it's gonna look like a hurricane blew through. even though we dragged a bunch of limbs out of our driveway last night (neighbors have a GIANT cherry tree---with a treehouse in it---that hangs over our fence), there's an equal number to replace them this morning---and the spouse says there are more that are just stuck in the tree, ready to crash when they come loose.

my life-long buffalonian neighbors have been through some unbelievable storms, but they're all in disbelief, saying say they have never seen tree damage like this.

[akip]

I suppose this would be a good time to mention that it's 67 here right now, with an expected high of 88 this afternoon. :D

hey, you get your's. but would i trade places with you?

YES!! :D

[euro60]

The scene must be similar in Detroit. I read that the Oakland A's players were making snow angels on the field while practising yesterday for today's Game 3 of the ALCS.

[Nellie Bly]

A relative of mine is stuck in Buffalo, a tree branch fell on her boyfriend's car lastnight and it has to be towed back to Rochester. With the thruway closed, there's no telling when they'll get home.

my life-long buffalonian neighbors have been through some unbelievable storms, but they're all in disbelief, saying say they have never seen tree damage like this.

I bet, when the ice storm hit in '91, it was in January so all the trees were bare.

[akip]

I bet, when the ice storm hit in '91, it was in January so all the trees were bare.

yeah, everyone's saying this is worse.

it's gonna be like when dutch elm disease hit and wiped out thousands and thousands of big beautiful neighborhood trees. since our lovely old city neighborhoods, along with the cultural organizations, are the last gems of buffalo, this is gonna hurt.

[Breeze]

hey, you get your's. but would i trade places with you?

YES!! :D

Oh yes, we get ours. The four hurricanes in the space of about a year were not much fun. We skated on that this year, but it's certainly not a given that we always will.

But it do seem a tad early to get hammered like y'all are. I remember one lovely Halloween while I was in college where we got about four inches of snow. My only saving grace being that was the year a buddy and I dressed up as the MacKenize brothers--the toques and parkas came in mighty handy!

[ThomasC]

The scene must be similar in Detroit. I read that the Oakland A's players were making snow angels on the field while practising yesterday for today's Game 3 of the ALCS.
Wow.

"Nick Swisher trotted out to right field and, with freak October flurries swirling at Comerica Park, plopped onto his back and began making mock snow angels.

Only for a minute, though. Shivering, the Oakland Athletics first baseman put on his ski cap and retreated to the dugout Thursday, when Detroit was hit with its earliest snowfall ever."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/mariners/2003302250_alcs13.html

[markalot]

So when we get a gob of hurricanes and hot weather the global warming activists go nuts. Now we have a season with almost no hurricanes and early snow.

OMG! ICE AGE

[Poolio]

yeah, everyone's saying this is worse.

it's gonna be like when dutch elm disease hit and wiped out thousands and thousands of big beautiful neighborhood trees. since our lovely old city neighborhoods, along with the cultural organizations, are the last gems of buffalo, this is gonna hurt.
Yeah, after the ice storm hit Rochester, the city just chopped down any tree with any damage. It didn't matter if it was minor limb damage, they chopped it down. Some of the neighborhoods survived with little damage but other lost most of their trees. One of my favorite parts of that city was how even the ghetto-y streets were tree-lined but after '91 not so much.

[Angel30]

yeah, everyone's saying this is worse.

it's gonna be like when dutch elm disease hit and wiped out thousands and thousands of big beautiful neighborhood trees. since our lovely old city neighborhoods, along with the cultural organizations, are the last gems of buffalo, this is gonna hurt.
I have never heard of lighting during a snow storm before... wow. Crazy. Yeah, after Hurricane Charley, we lost so many big, beautiful oak trees in Orlando. Really did change the landscape a lot in many neighborhoods.

Hoping the worst is over for you. Being without power after a regular thunderstorm (or hurricane) is bad, but at least it is warm out. Can't imagine when it is cold and there is snow on the ground. :( Bet it must be pretty though! :o

[gwar469]

I suppose this would be a good time to mention that it's 67 here right now, with an expected high of 88 this afternoon. :D

same here in Houston. so far, i don't miss the white death one bit!

[GISRICK]

Worddddddddddddddddddd.............

[Unrequited]

I'll take snow over heat and humidity any day.

[akip]

Yeah, after the ice storm hit Rochester, the city just chopped down any tree with any damage. It didn't matter if it was minor limb damage, they chopped it down. Some of the neighborhoods survived with little damage but other lost most of their trees. One of my favorite parts of that city was how even the ghetto-y streets were tree-lined but after '91 not so much.

now that the meltdown's under way (and the wind's kicked up too), it's clear that we are gonna lose hundreds of thousands of trees in this area. i'd say every tree along the streets of this neighborhood, and no doubt throughout the city as well, sustained major damage. it looks just like a category 3 hurricane hit.

[akip]

I have never heard of lighting during a snow storm before... wow. Crazy. Yeah, after Hurricane Charley, we lost so many big, beautiful oak trees in Orlando. Really did change the landscape a lot in many neighborhoods.

Hoping the worst is over for you. Being without power after a regular thunderstorm (or hurricane) is bad, but at least it is warm out. Can't imagine when it is cold and there is snow on the ground. :( Bet it must be pretty though! :o

there was lightning and thunder here for hours while the snow was coming down pretty hard. it was indeed bizarre.

we haven't lost our power, which is a huge relief, considering i have a complicated tax return to finish by monday (yeah, i've been stalling---woxy coming back is the culprit ;) ).

[Unrequited]

So when we get a gob of hurricanes and hot weather the global warming activists go nuts. Now we have a season with almost no hurricanes and early snow.

OMG! ICE AGE

More intense snow storms is indeed an effect of global warming in colder regions. Global warming is not the greatest term, some scientists prefer "climate change". Global warming, in general, refers to the average earth temperatures increasing. It doesn't mean every region of the planet will always be above 90 degrees.

[akip]

here's a few photos, but you have to multiply this by many thousands of households (we're up to 300,000 out of power, i hear). supposedly half the trees in buffalo are destroyed or significantly damaged.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v643/54Spring/corner.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v643/54Spring/light.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v643/54Spring/limbdown.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v643/54Spring/corner2.jpg

what you can't really see is all the branches that have snapped and are hanging by a thread.

[justa bill]

that's crazy akip... wow!

i'm kinda surprised the trees up there are not used to a lot of snow... :confused:

STAY WARM!!! :]

[akip]

that's crazy akip... wow!

i'm kinda surprised the trees up there are not used to a lot of snow... :confused:

STAY WARM!!! :]

'cause it normally doesn't snow till halloween, when most of the leaves have fallen. also, this was a lake effect snow at 34 degrees---wet, heavy snow and a foot of it falling into big, old, leafy trees.

it's hard to imagine it from the photos----every single house has trashed trees. one of my neighbor's back yard is just a mountain of downed limbs.

[markalot]

First picture looks to be a green or white ash, man that's sad, but the red maple to the right looks ok.

The third is a big old Linden of some sort.

That tree in the first picture looks really bad but it will regenerate very fast since all the roots are intact and most of the energy has been transported down for the winter already. I hope people don't give up on these trees and cut them down!

In early snows it's usually the trash trees, like silver maple, that hold up better because the branches are very flexible. The 'sturdy' trees, like oaks, sugar maples, Linden, Beech, can really take a lot of damage because of the weight of the snow on inflexible branches.

[akip]

The 'sturdy' trees, like oaks and maples, can really take a lot of damage because of the weight.

yeah, i thought it was a cherry tree that ended up with almost all its limbs in my driveway, but it was a maple (the neighbor has three huge trees in a clump next to the fence between our properties). and the maple definitely got the worst of it---there's almost nothing left but the trunk. their little apple is wrecked too 'cause it was very spread out like a canopy, but it looks like it's split in half.

one of the neighbors said that somebody was walking around pointing at trees on our street, going, "that one's gone, that one can pull through." the neighbors are gonna want to save everything they can, 'cause they love this neighborhood and they fundraise to replant trees every year. we'll see what happens with the city.

[akip]

everybody is out walking their dogs down the middle of the street, 'cause there's still a driving ban in effect and the sidewalks are unpassable. plus it's windy and nobody wants to get conked on the head by falling branches.

[markalot]

yeah, i thought it was a cherry tree that ended up with almost all its limbs in my driveway, but it was a maple (the neighbor has three huge trees in a clump next to the fence between our properties). and the maple definitely got the worst of it---there's almost nothing left but the trunk. their little apple is wrecked too 'cause it was very spread out like a canopy, but it looks like it's split in half.

one of the neighbors said that somebody was walking around pointing at trees on our street, going, "that one's gone, that one can pull through." the neighbors are gonna want to save everything they can, 'cause they love this neighborhood and they fundraise to replant trees every year. we'll see what happens with the city.

It's an interresting problem, growing climax trees outside of a forest environment. Pioneer trees (Honeylocust, Silver maple (though really a swamp or lakeside tree), Red maple to a certain extent, Ashes, elms) are all designed to be first on the scene so they are more adapted to extremes in weather and are designed to a certain extent to be open grown. Some have flexible branches, some lose their leaves very early (honeylocusts are bare by now), some regenerate very very fast (on the order of 20 feet in a single year if the roots are intact) after damage.

The forest climax trees just aren't designed to be open grown. While they are beautiful when grown in the open they don't have the adaptation to cope with extreme weather events.

Are there any mature woods nearby (once you can actually get somewhere!) where you can observe the damage and see how bad it is? I've got to believe that native mature trees growing near the lakes have adapted to extreme weather like this. Of course surviving and looking good are two different things :)

[Nellie Bly]

[trying to look for a brightspot]At least the price of firewood will go down for next season.[/brightspot]

Akip, maybe the city will help replant some of the trees? If not the city, then maybe the arbor day society?

[REMgirl]

Oh, Akip! How terrible! It looks like a real mess, but it mostly makes me sad to see that damage to those trees. It changes the entire feel of the neighborhood, doesn't it? :(

[akip]

Are there any mature woods nearby (once you can actually get somewhere!) where you can observe the damage and see how bad it is? I've got to believe that native mature trees growing near the lakes have adapted to extreme weather like this. Of course surviving and looking good are two different things :)

yeah, there are long standing woods, but no, i can't get out yet.

[akip]

[trying to look for a brightspot]At least the price of firewood will go down for next season.[/brightspot]

Akip, maybe the city will help replant some of the trees? If not the city, then maybe the arbor day society?

i saw the woman who's in charge of the neighborhood tree-planting campaign and she's totally overwhelmed today, of course.

basically, everyone who lives here is asked to chip in for new trees every year to the tune of $100 a tree, and then to help plant in late october.

the city. hmmm. what they'll be willing to do is up in the air, considering that we're in an ongoing fiscal crisis and answering to a control board, and the police are ready to strike if they don't get pay raises. let's say i'm a bit fatalistic.


oh, strangely, i don't have a functioning fireplace. for some reason, the one in this house is, and always has been, a dummy. and yeah, it's a big, big drag.

[akip]

Oh, Akip! How terrible! It looks like a real mess, but it mostly makes me sad to see that damage to those trees. It changes the entire feel of the neighborhood, doesn't it? :(

it's really the trees everyone's bummed about. it's a big part of this neighborhood's appeal, as well as the victorian and early 20th century architecture.

it reminds me of when andrew blasted through coral gables, which had tree canopies over a lot of the streets---quite beautiful---but then the hurricane stripped them. took several years to grow back. but this place will look different for a long time.

[justa bill]

...at 34 degrees---wet, heavy snow and a foot of it falling into big, old, leafy trees.

got ya. i was wondering, but that make sense. Somewhere in the South they get an ice storm every year and all the trees loose limbs because they're not used to it.

i'm surprised by not only how many leaves you have left but how green they are. i would have thought Buffalo would be well into its Fall color by now.

glad you didn't have any major damage. :]

conked on the head by falling branches

excellent use of "conk".

[akip]

i'm surprised by not only how many leaves you have left but how green they are. i would have thought Buffalo would be well into its Fall color by now.


sept and october are the best time of year here. the leaves generally turn second half of october and fall into early november. halloween can be quite nice some years.

the really frigid months here are january and february. the strange thing is that the grass is usually green when the snow starts to accumulate in december and when it starts to melt in march, it's still green. the legendary snow dumps tend to happen early in the season when the lake is still warm enough to become a snow-machine.

[rcc94]

Wow. My brother-in-law (which is still strange to say less than a week after the wedding) grew up in Buffalo, and, ironically, is all about tree planting. I'll have to send him a link to this thread.

After Hurricane Fran hit Raleigh in September 1996 it looked a lot like that. We're the city of oaks, but we lost many of them. Then we had the ice storm of 2002 and some were without power for a week.

Hope you keep your power over the weekend!

[akip]

After Hurricane Fran hit Raleigh in September 1996 it looked a lot like that. We're the city of oaks, but we lost many of them. Then we had the ice storm of 2002 and some were without power for a week.

Hope you keep your power over the weekend!

i feel very lucky to have phone, internet AND power---a lot of my neighbors aren't so lucky. we took three huge trees out when we first moved. it was a pain in the ass and expensive, but they'd been neglected and they were crammed right up against the house. turns out, if we hadn't bothered, we would've been in big trouble, no doubt.

anyway, it's official. according to jim lehrer, this was the biggest october snowfall in buffalo's recorded history.

[akip]

how it happened - rochester democrat & chronicle (http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061014/NEWS01/610140326/1002/NEWS)

still in state of emergency, but main roads are open.

i'm gonna look for a neighbor who knows tree species to see which ones are relatively unharmed. there are some very, very tall trees (some 3 stories high) that just dumped all their leaves and appear unphased.

[Homsar]

Maybe I should be a weatherman. Sounds like fun. Plus I could be on tv.

[The Sheck]

I have never heard of lighting during a snow storm before... wow.

It happens up here some of the time. But still...yeesh, akip. The photos of all that snow next to the trees with green leaves still were insane. I can tell you that's NEVER happened here. ;)

[akip]

It happens up here some of the time. But still...yeesh, akip. The photos of all that snow next to the trees with green leaves still were insane. I can tell you that's NEVER happened here. ;)

i guess it depends on how much snow falls on green leaves. i guess they've seen snow here in mid-october, but apparently not a lake effect dump.

btw, my ex-minneapolis friends in santa fe are sending me taunting emails.

[The Ugly Thief]

here's a few photos, but you have to multiply this by many thousands of households (we're up to 300,000 out of power, i hear). supposedly half the trees in buffalo are destroyed or significantly damaged.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v643/54Spring/corner.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v643/54Spring/light.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v643/54Spring/limbdown.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v643/54Spring/corner2.jpg

what you can't really see is all the branches that have snapped and are hanging by a thread.


...and every once in a while i am asked "Do you miss living in upstate NY ?"

to which i promptly answer "No, not at all"

good luck w/ everything akip !!!

v

[akip]

good luck w/ everything akip !!!

v

thanks. i think we got off easy. i'm just relieved we took out a monster cherry immediately after moving in. that thing was like a giant octopus spitting bloody gobs all over the back porch. it would've eaten us alive.

[monkey neck]

So when we get a gob of hurricanes and hot weather the global warming activists go nuts. Now we have a season with almost no hurricanes and early snow.

OMG! ICE AGE

Yeah, c'moooon global warming!

[akip]

i quizzed some of the neighbors who are old timers and know a bit about the local trees. seems the feeling is the original elms (100,000 of em) that were wiped out by disease in the early 60s probably would've done much better (smaller leaves).

so the maples---norwegian and other varieties---were mainly planted 40 years ago to replace the lost elms. some siberian elms were also planted, but i guess they're not so beautiful as the original ones and have obnoxious root systems.

however, the old timers also stress that this sort of early heavy snow is a once-in-a-hundred years thing, actually longer, 'cause it's never happened so long as buffalo's been recording weather.

[Ghost Tropic]

Akip, don't you remember the blizzard of '97? That was the best sledding year EVER.

[akip]

Akip, don't you remember the blizzard of '97? That was the best sledding year EVER.

i moved here in january '03. missed all the legendary dumps till this one.

[velouria]

OK, I'm from Buffalo, too. We just got power last night. Still no cable or phone. I watched all the lines get ripped from our house in the middle of Thursday night. We live in Snyder, just northeast of Buffalo, and this area is packed with huge old trees. It's even worse here than in the city (where I'm currently at work). You look down streets and literally can't see the houses because of all the limbs piled up by the street. I haven't stopped working since Thursday night, trying to save trees (an exercise in futility, as the snow just wouldn't stop!). Friday was the day to survey damage, check on everyone, and try to get the generator started, and the past couple days, sun-up to sundown have been about sawing down branches, climbing on roofs, and helping out neighbors. What a mess. Still so much to cleanup, but today it's pouring, so I'll finally get a break. My town will not look the same for hundreds of years. There's not an untouched tree in the whole town, and so many have to be removed completely. It's heartbreaking. But it is nice to have power back! Considering that two days ago I was digging out and untwisting wires from one foot diameter downed tree limbs in my yard...

[akip]

i can only imagine what snyder looks like. i haven't been north or east of the intersection of main and hertel.

i hear it's bad downtown around streets like linwood well.

good luck. it's a mess alright.

[velouria]

I drove down Linwood and tried to get to Elmwood Pets yesterday, but it was closed. Linwood is not bad. Most of what I saw in Buffalo, even on sidestreets, was pretty much branches, not whole limbs. I didn't see too many trees that had to be removed, or that wouldn't be filed in in a few years, fortunately. Bidwell and Lincoln look bad, but still, the trees are intact and will fill in. Our pile in front is about 8 feet tall by 8 feet deep and spans the width of our property. We can't even see the street from the house. So many trees around us are either uprooted, split beyond repair, or have just lost so many limbs that they're ridiculous-looking. Our big back tree (probably 125 years old) lost half its limbs and now we can see the neighbors, the sky, the garage...it's much sunnier back there now. But at least it still looks like a tree. Can't say the same about the ones in front. My husband and I are already starting our tree fund for next spring...and here we thought we were getting a new driveway next spring!

[akip]

what trees got it worst in snyder? what species did the old ones tend to be

[velouria]

Here are some pics of my cleanup. Now that pile in front is twice as tall. And in the final photo of the yard almost cleaned-up, from this viewpoint before the storm, you could not see the sky or houses to the left of the tree, the garage to the right, or the trunk of the tree. All you could see was leaves. We lost every lower branch hanging over the yard, and only a few taller vertical ones remain.

[velouria]

We've got big old silver maples, which i know break apart easily, but ours were very healthy. Lost of smaller trees are split. Our neighbor lost both locust tress in front completely. I haven't had a chance to look closely on other streets because I've been so busy with mine, my neighbor's and my mother's property (over on Bentham Pkwy), but Burroughs especially seems to have lost a number of really large trees. Sycamores seem to have fared pretty well. Cherries and Crabapples didn't do too well. Most are split because of the way they branch. But it's pretty much everything and anything. I'm shocked that there isn't more damage to homes. We lost a few gutters and our fence is split, but the garage survived. There are trees on homes near my mother, and they have damage, but nothing totally crushed.

[akip]

the city cleaned up my street yesterday (miracle of miracles!)

looks like your tax money isn't working for you yet. :(

[velouria]

No, I'm not worried about that. They're still working hard on power. 40,000 out fo 42,000 homes in Amherst lost power. Ours wasn't supposed to be on until Wednesday, so I'm fine. Plus, nobody is even close to being done with cleanup. We've got a bunch of chainsawing to do on our street yet. At least today I get a break because of the rain. I'm thinking of going into the tree removal business after this! Of course, our neighbor's mother lives on a street off Klein next to a big Satish supporter, and their yards were completely cleared, front and back, Saturday morning, when most people couldn't even get off of their streets!

[akip]

We've got big old silver maples, which i know break apart easily, but ours were very healthy. Lost of smaller trees are split. Our neighbor lost both locust tress in front completely. I haven't had a chance to look closely on other streets because I've been so busy with mine, my neighbor's and my mother's property (over on Bentham Pkwy), but Burroughs especially seems to have lost a number of really large trees. Sycamores seem to have fared pretty well. Cherries and Crabapples didn't do too well. Most are split because of the way they branch. But it's pretty much everything and anything. I'm shocked that there isn't more damage to homes. We lost a few gutters and our fence is split, but the garage survived. There are trees on homes near my mother, and they have damage, but nothing totally crushed.

the worst situations i saw were where people had large, vulnerable trees in their backyards.

lots of fruit trees in this neighborhood---i wonder if the wave of italians planted them. our mulberry and pear trees seem to have done alright, just need some cutting, but the neighbors' lovely apple tree was split in two.

[velouria]

Yes, I'm glad our big trees are healthy and hang over the yard, not the house! As it is, I only got 1 hour of sleep Thursday night watching limbs crash around us. I would have been a basket case worrying about them over the house. But this area's going to be pretty ugly for quite some time, I think...

[velouria]

akip, where in buffalo are you?

[akip]

No, I'm not worried about that. They're still working hard on power. 40,000 out fo 42,000 homes in Amherst lost power. Ours wasn't supposed to be on until Wednesday, so I'm fine. Plus, nobody is even close to being done with cleanup. We've got a bunch of chainsawing to do on our street yet. At least today I get a break because of the rain. I'm thinking of going into the tree removal business after this! Of course, our neighbor's mother lives on a street off Klein next to a big Satish supporter, and their yards were completely cleared, front and back, Saturday morning, when most people couldn't even get off of their streets!

i just called the dog grooming parlor over on englewood where my terrier had an appointment this morning, but the phone just rang and rang. so they're out.

in this neighborhood, power is house-to-house. the main line was fine.

i consider myself to be very, very lucky. just had a lot of raking to do yesterday before the rain. neighbors were very, very helpful removing branches.

[velouria]

My brother lives in a crappy new Wheatfield development and has no trees, so he had no cleanup. But I can't imagine not having my old house and old trees, so I'll put up with the cleanup and keep my fingers crossed for the trees that are still standing.

[akip]

akip, where in buffalo are you?

central park.