Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - This week marks 10 years since "Snowvember", which is widely remembered for the wall of snow that blanketed parts of Erie County, while other towns got off scot free.
Meteorologist Andy Parker says he was on his way from Orchard Park to work at Channel 7 when the storm hit.
"Once into the city, we were tracking it live in the morning, and then the situation escalated rather quickly as that lake effect band intensified and locked in on some of the Southtowns," Parker recalled in an interview with WBEN.
He says it was a well-forecasted storm.
"As the storm was forming, it was predicted to be several feet of snow. This was not an unknown issue. As it came in, it developed into what a lot of people called the wall, as you could be to the north, and you could literally see the wall of the lake effect as it came in off the lake, and just hammered areas like Hamburg, Lackawanna, West, Seneca, Lancaster in particular," Parker said.
He adds it was a one-two punch, one storm, then a short break, and then a second lake effect event hitting the same area, leading to storm totals of 4-to-6 feet in some spots.
Parker recalls a big difference along Transit Road.
"I remember being near the airport on bare pavement, turning onto Transit Road, and literally standing across the street from the edge of what that wall was. You could almost like could reach out and put your arm into it. It was such a stark change from sunshine to just white out conditions, and then driving through portions of Lancaster, along Aurora where there were just walls of snow on either side of the road," Parker said.
National Weather Service meteorologist John Hitchcock also recalls that fine line from feet of snow to almost nothing.
"That storm had a very classic, sharp Northern edge to it," recalled Hitchcock with WBEN. "From about the Southern half of the City of Buffalo Southward into the Southtowns, there were incredible amounts of snow, while the grass was still green in the Northtowns. And we see that occasionally in these storms, they typically have a very sharp Northern edge, where you go from feet of snow down to nothing in just a matter of miles."
How similar was the original "Snowvember" storm to "Snowvember 2.0" or the Christmas blizzard, both in 2022?
"It showed a lot of similarities to November 2022, although in November 2022, that band moved around more, so there was heavy snowfall over a larger area, even the Northtowns had snow," Hitchcock noted.
He says November 2022 had no similarities to the December Blizzard because of the differences in wind speed, the amount of blowing and drifting, and how cold it was for the blizzard. He says, though, the 2014 November event and the 2022 November event were fairly similar
Parker feels "Snowvember" in 2014 was a different animal than the 2022 storms.
"The wind was the driver on that one. Yes, there was a lot of snow, but the lake effect machine did move a little bit more than it did in this situation. So the white outs were more widespread with the blizzard, where this was such a narrow, intense band, I think that's the biggest difference. But if you're inside of that, it really doesn't matter. You can't see a thing in either storm," Parker said.