Buffalo Snowed by Severe Storm

Already reeling from a Christmas week blizzard, Buffalo residents coped Friday with 3 feet of new snow, the second-highest one-day total in the city’s 170-year history.

The city has received nearly 7 feet of snow since Monday, nearly as much as it typically receives in an entire winter. Officials have declared a state of emergency, with streets made impassable, mobile home roofs caved in and at least two deaths linked to the harsh conditions.

“It looks like somebody opened up the sky and just poured out buckets of snow,” said Matthew Brown, a spokesman for Buffalo Mayor Anthony M. Masiello. “This is Buffalo. Snow is our specialty. But man, this is a lot.”

Because of swiftly rising snowdrifts and quarter-mile visibility, authorities banned all private vehicle traffic and shut down interstate highways and the Buffalo Niagara International Airport, stranding thousands of travelers in a city where nearly everything is closed.

The record snowfall--82.3 inches since Monday--was piling up as fast as it could be cleared away, and National Guard troops were on their way to help remove the snow in dump trucks.

Carroll Tartt, a 10th-grade teacher in suburban Cheektowaga, spent part of Friday afternoon shoveling his frontyard.

“It’s bad,” Tartt said, speaking outside on a cordless phone. “There’s mounds of snow as far as you can see. The trees have pretty much had it, bending under all the weight. There’s nobody outside.”

Forecasters began warning days ago that a huge snowstorm was headed toward western New York.

“I hate to boast,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Stanley Levine, “but we nailed this one.”

Still, the severity of the storm caught many people off guard, causing several injuries and at least two deaths. An 83-year-old man died Friday when his carport roof collapsed, and a pedestrian was killed by a truck that skidded out of control on a patch of ice.

The flurries started Monday afternoon, at first leaving just a light dusting.

“But it kept falling. And falling. And falling,” Tartt said.

The next day, trees were frosted with fresh snowflakes and streets were lined by drifts, whipped up by 20 mph winds. Children, on winter vacation, played outside, chucking snowballs, making snowmen, building igloos.

By 6 a.m. Friday, 35.4 inches had fallen in 24 hours, the second-highest total in the city’s history. The 83.5 inches measured in December is the most ever in a single month in the area and only slightly less than the average for an entire snow season.

The blizzard comes after an uncharacteristically pleasant fall in Buffalo, notorious for its gray, grueling weather. The city didn’t see a flake of snow in November, and temperatures were in the 60s in early December.

This was the ideal starter-kit for a huge storm because Buffalo winters are creatures of the “lake effect.” The warmer the fall weather, the worse the winter snows.

The mild autumn kept the waters of nearby Lake Erie at 41 degrees, compared with a normal temperature of 33. This increased the rate of evaporation, and thus the amount of moisture in the air. When a fist of cold wind came pounding down from the Arctic, it suddenly turned the built-up moisture into wide bands of snow.

Until Lake Erie freezes over, usually at the end of January, the potential for massive snowfall remains. Meteorologists are predicting the snow will ease up by Sunday but could resume shortly afterward.

Meanwhile, as many as a hundred vehicles crashed in three separate pileups on snow-slickened interstates Friday in central and northeast Pennsylvania.

One crash on Interstate 80 near Williamsport involved up to 50 cars and resulted in six deaths and more than 40 injuries, state police said. Witnesses said a tanker truck caught fire and flames spread to other vehicles.

Two other wrecks, on I-80 and I-81 near Hazleton, involved at least 50 vehicles and killed two.

Helicopters were called in to take some people to hospitals, and others were brought in by ambulance.

A snow squall caused whiteout conditions and the snow quickly froze on the highways, police said. Hundreds of cars were backed up behind each of the accident scenes.

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Times researcher Edith Stanley and Associated Press contributed to this report.