First Alert Weather In-Depth: Sailing through winter with another type of storm

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First Alert Weather In-Depth: The ‘Alberta Clipper’ can mean rapid changes here in WNY

The News10NBC Team details breaking News, Traffic and Weather.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — What does an old sailing ship from the mid-1800s have in common with one of our winter storms?  The answer is all in the name.  The Flying Dragon (1854) is a clipper ship and it set speed records when sailing from Australia to Britain. They called it a clipper ship because of how fast it was able to maneuver. This weather connection is with a storm that develops in southwestern Canada. It called a Alberta Clipper and it develops right over the Province of Alberta, where the cities of Edmonton and Calgary are located.

Just like our sailing ship, this storm is also moving fast and that allows the storm to “sail” right across the US-Canadian border and produce a particular set of weather elements. First, because it is moving so quickly, weather conditions can also change very rapidly across Western New York.  Second, when the storm passes there is usually a sudden drop in the temperature. Third, strong gusty winds can produce blowing and drifting snow.  And lastly, it usually has a limited amount of moisture. However, there is one cavort to this restricted moisture. Quite often the energy from this particular storm can enhance lake effect snow adding to localized snowfall amounts.

For many reasons, this particular system poses significant challenges for the meteorologist. Fortunately, this type of storm does not last very long.