Buffalo Lake-Effect Snowband Looked Like a Haboob (VIDEO, PHOTOS)

By Jon Erdman
Published: November 18,2014




 
An impressive band of lake-effect snow off Lake Erie hammered parts of western New York Monday into Tuesday, leaving parts of the Buffalo metro area with several feet of snow.
(MORE: Forecast | News | Photos | Live Cams)
While the snow accumulations were impressive, the view of the lake snowband from downtown Buffalo, shown in the above timelapse video, may have been the biggest attention-grabber of all.
Snowfall rates were estimated at 4 inches per hour on the south side of Buffalo in this band Tuesday.
Below is another view of the snowband, this time from the air on a flight from Buffalo Niagara International Airport, which was on the extreme northern fringe of the snowband.
Do these photos remind you of anything? Compare the video above with this collection of several classic Desert Southwest haboob timelapses.
A haboob is a massive dust storm caused by strong winds, typically flowing outward from thunderstorms. This is typically seen several times each summer in the Desert Southwest, but was also more recently seen with an arctic front diving down the High Plains of the U.S. on Veterans Day 2014.
(MORE: Haboob Defined | Nov. 11 Arctic Haboob | Aug. 2014 Calif./Ariz. Haboob)
The first words out of my mouth when seeing the Buffalo photos were, "Is this a snow haboob?"
Of course, there are many differences between this lake-effect snowband and a haboob.
The two phenomena occur at different times of year in different regions of the country with different precipitation regimes (heavy snow falling vs. mainly dry outflow winds kicking up dust from the ground).
Also, a lake-effect snowband can remain parked for a time while a haboob typically races quickly thanks to outflow winds propagating away from their parent thunderstorms, or a fast-moving arctic front in the Veterans Day case, kicking up the dust cloud.
Incidentally, here was a radar view of the Buffalo metro lake snowband. Notice the sharp cutoff on the northern end of the lake-effect snowband. That's what folks in downtown Buffalo were seeing Tuesday.
Meteorologist Mike Seidel experienced the far northern edge of the lake snowband near Buffalo Niagara International Airport Tuesday morning, shown in the video below. As of midday Tuesday, only about 3 inches was measured, there.
Meteorologist Mike Bettes had somewhat different experience in Hamburg, New York, only about 20 miles driving distance.