First Alert Forecast: Some accumulating snow for western New York this week

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – It’s been a mild and tame fall up until this point, but that is starting to change. Wintry weather is making it’s way into western New York this week, and in a very big way for parts of the area. A Yellow Alert is up Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. This is an area-wide light snow, with most seeing a coating to an inch or two by Wednesday morning. We’ll likely see snow falling during the morning commute, and with temperatures hovering right around freezing, we may see some impacts on roads. This won’t be a big event, but it will be our first snowfall impacting a commute, so it’s a good time to dust off our winter driving skills!

Our next round of snow will arrive Thursday night, and likely last into the weekend. This one will be focused on areas west of Rochester, including the city of Buffalo, Wyoming County, and Thruway travel in Genesee County. While this next round late week will be much more localized, it’ll also be much more impactful for those areas that do see the snow. This lake effect plume will likely deliver 1-2 feet of snow to the Buffalo area, with a plowable snow in Genesee County, and perhaps some minor accumulations to western parts of Monroe County. We’ll need to monitor this next round through the week, to see how far east this band of snow makes it, and how much of an impact we may see closer to Rochester. Stay tuned.