First Alert Weather: Cold wind and lake flakes return to the area

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — A shot of colder air returning to western New  York arrived with a gust wind at times and some areas of lake effect snow.

The most persistent and heaviest lake snow will be off of Lake Erie, impacting parts of Genesee and Wyoming Counties, along with the NYS Thruway between Buffalo and Erie. Locally, we’ll see flakes Monday night dropping back south as the winds shift ever so slightly. This should tend to push the snow back into the Southern Tier and southern Livingston County by Tuesday morning.

Outside of that, we should see some clearing in the skies, with temperatures dropping into the teens tonight, but the gusty wind making it feel more like the single digits. Tuesday will feature some sun, but the Lake Ontario band of snow will be pushed south around or just after dinner-time. This will bring a quick inch of snow to much of the area from north to south. If this occurs during the evening commute, conditions may deteriorate quickly. We’ll keep you updated on the timing of this.

This wind shift will keep us cold into Wednesday with some scattered lake snow showers and a brisk wind.

Then, we get a little bit of a break from the cold and wind, with temperatures climbing back through the 20s on Thursday, then into the 30s on Friday and Saturday! In fact, it’ll be mild enough for some rain showers mixing with snow showers on Saturday. That won’t last, though. Our next batch of cold air arrives on Sunday. At this point, expect temperatures to fall through the 20s with some snow showers for the Bills game on Sunday evening. This is a very early forecast, and some changes are to be expected.

Speaking of cold, we’ll get an even colder shot of Arctic air through much of next week with off and on lake snow showers.