First Alert Weather: Quiet in Rochester for Black Friday, but turning snowy south

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Our Thanksgiving weather was rainy near Rochester, and Black Friday will be turning chillier, but no big issues if you’re trying to score those big deals!

We’ll see a few occasional flurries on Friday. There’s the chance we could officially see our first flurries of the season in Rochester, but nothing that’ll be accumulating on the ground. Meanwhile, much colder air will begin to flow over the fairly warm waters of the Great Lakes. This will begin to set up an impressive lake effect snow event for areas south of Buffalo, and east of Lake Ontario. A band of heavy lake effects will begin to set up on Saturday, bringing accumulating snow and some blowing snow to the Thruway from areas south of Buffalo to Erie, and in the Tug Hill region.

Once this is set up, it’ll remain steady-state, only meandering slightly through Sunday night. This means snowfall amounts will pile up fast, and travel will become very dangerous along the Thruway from Buffalo to Erie. Keep this in mind if you’re headed west after the holiday. Meanwhile, if you’re headed east along the Thruway, travel should be pretty good, with just a few occasional flurries or snow showers. You’ll also need to be aware of Thruway travel in and around Orchard Park on Sunday if you’re planning to go to the Bills game.

We’ll see a wind shift Sunday night, which will direct that Lake Erie band of snow into the western Southern Tier, and allow some lighter snow to develop off of Lake Ontario. This is when the Rochester region could begin to see some minor accumulation. This is still a few days away, so specific details on amounts and locations will be coming out in the next day or so. We don’t expect anything major, but we could see a period of some snow that could impact roads early next week. If that is the case, we’d put up a Yellow Alert as a heads-up. Speaking of which, it looks like next week will be much more wintry, with another shot of chillier air by late week, accompanied by some more snow.