Under more than 5 feet of snow, images and video are flooding social media in Buffalo. Shannon Rae Green shows the tweets and instagram videos of people stranded and digging out. (USA NOW, USA TODAY)
Video TranscriptAutomatically Generated Transcript (may not be 100% accurate)
00:05 Incredible photos and videos of record breaking snowfall are flooding
00:10 social media with hash tags November. Stranded. And buffalo. Buffalo is
00:16 known for its harsh winters that never this much without letting
00:19 up for three days. Ourselves ours our communities that are gonna
00:24 received the equipment a whole year's worth of snow. In three
00:29 days. I initiate and ray green and mrs. USA now for
00:33 November 19 when he fourteen. The first brutal snowstorm well before
00:38 the first day of winter has resulted in five deaths in
00:42 the buffalo area. The snow is still falling with more than
00:45 five feet already on the grounds take a look at this
00:48 photo from Heather McDonald. Mark Andrew Powell posted this tends to
00:52 ram that's a six foot fence mostly married. Some areas will
00:56 break at national snowfall record set in 1921. Getting up to
01:01 six feet in only 24 hours. Nearly everyone in buffalo is
01:05 strained at. More than fifty flights have been canceled as of
01:08 this morning according to flight aware. And Amtrak service is suspend
01:12 that people have been stranded on roads Aaron dealer right out
01:16 tweeted that her girlfriend was stuck on the 1998. Hours. Here's
01:20 an end to Graham user who stuck at work for three
01:22 gates. That was this album. Officials say that in some areas
01:29 there's more than 76. Inches of snow. Not to mention enormous
01:33 trucks struggling to dig out an abandoned cars up and down
01:36 highways take a look at this tweet from WGR AZ Steve
01:39 Brown. A buffalo police cruiser burst into flames no one was
01:43 hurt you can see the burned out wreck in the snell.
01:46 And here's a picture from media 371. Saying this fire truck
01:50 has been up and end. And another shot from that account
01:53 of the stranded public transit bus. We'll keep bringing you the
01:57 latest updates as people get rescued in continue to dig out
02:00 from record snowfall and awful stay with us on USA today
02:04 dot com.
Bob Wilcox clears the snow at the end of his driveway on Nov. 19 on Bowen Road in Lancaster, N.Y.(Photo: Gary Wiepert, AP)
Buffalo's first snowstorm of the season could give the area a year's worth of snow — around 8 feet — in just three days.
More than 5 feet of snow was already on the ground Wednesday, and another round of lake-effect snow is forecast to bring an additional 3 feet of snow to the Buffalo area on Thursday and Friday. The average snowfall for an entire year: 93.6 inches, or close to 8 feet.
"This is a historic event. When all is said and done, this snowstorm will break all sorts of records, and that's saying something in Buffalo," Gov. Andrew Cuomo said during a visit to the city.
Christopher Burt, a weather historian with the Weather Underground, said this Lake Erie snowstorm "will go down as the most extreme on record."
For the second straight day, overnight temperatures in all 50 states Wednesday fell to freezing or lower — even in Hawaii, atop the high mountain summit of Mauna Kea on the Big Island.
At least six deaths in western New York were blamed on the snow, including three from heart attacks while shoveling. Two other deaths were reported in New Hampshire and Michigan.
YOUR TAKE: Show signs of winter in your neck of the woods
While the worst of the cold will ease Thursday, temperatures will still be below-average in the East, the National Weather Service said.
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Record cold was reported Wednesday morning in New York City (22 degrees at LaGuardia), Washington (13 at Dulles), Raleigh, N.C. (19), and as far south as Jacksonville (27).
In Corpus Christi, Texas, experts are caring for about 140 turtles stunned in a cold snap that left the reptiles stranded on Gulf Coast beaches.
In western New York, the cold just added to the misery of the massive mounds of snow.
This photo provided by Chelsea Andorka, the Niagara University women's basketball team spokeswoman, shows the team holding a sign while their bus was snowbound Nov. 18, 2014, on the New York State Thruway in the middle of a lake-effect storm that dropped more than 4 feet of snow near Lackawanna, N.Y.(Photo: Chelsea Andorka, AP)
The storm came in so fast and furious over Lake Erie early Tuesday it trapped more than 100 vehicles along a 132-mile stretch of the New York State Thruway that remained closed Wednesday.
Some areas have so much snow that road crews said it was like plowing a brick wall. Rescuers, who have been using snowmobiles, also walked car to car to try to dig out people stuck in their vehicles.
A bus with the Niagara University women's basketball team was stuck on the Thruway for more than 24 hours while returning from a game in Pittsburgh. State troopers eventually were able to pick them up and bring them to a nearby police station, Niagara guard Tiffany Corselli said.
The last time a storm this huge hit was in December 2001, when 80 to 90 inches of snow fell on the region in a five-day period.
Shoveling snow is indeed hard work: The weight of the snow on a typical Buffalo driveway is about 25 tons, WeatherBell meteorologist Ryan Maue estimated.
Parts of Buffalo, N.Y., may see 70 inches of snow over a three-day period. Their usual average is 94 inches of snow per year. VPC
Video TranscriptAutomatically Generated Transcript (may not be 100% accurate)
00:02 It's not like we haven't seen snow before buck an
00:05 increasing number of officials concur. We have not ever seen it
00:10 quite like this this is one of the most significant snow
00:13 events anyone can remember the amount of snow. And the short
00:17 time in which it has fallen has been. Remarkable don't truly
00:21 personal falling at this I incorporate such short. As we've seen.
00:27 The last 24 hours is many times we get a blast.
00:31 Often followed by a break a few days to dig out
00:34 but for the snowbound areas in the lake effect band that
00:37 has not come yet. And now we're learning it might not
00:40 come at all because behind this blast another is projected perhaps
00:44 another foot or two on Thursday and Friday. Which together by
00:48 some estimates could bring ninety inches of snow to the most
00:52 affected areas. That's a seven and a half feet of snow
00:55 in just a few days that he is on her to
00:59 even here in place which remember. Averages about 94 inches of
01:03 snow. In an entire year. Put another way of ourselves ours
01:08 our community are gonna receive equip. Whole years worth of snow.
01:14 In three days.
The Buffalo Bills' game on Sunday against the New York Jets could be in jeopardy, as their stadium is buried under 220,000 tons of snow, according to the team. "We have not had this much snow, as far as we know, in the history of our team," said Andy Major, the Bills' vice president of operations and guest experience
In New Hampshire and elsewhere, icy roads led to accidents. Lake-effect storms in Michigan produced gale-force winds and as much as 18 inches of snow.
FOR THE WIN
Niagara women's hoops team gets stranded in the snow, livetweets experience
In Atlanta, tourists Morten and Annette Larsen from Copenhagen were caught off-guard by the 30-degree weather as they took photos of a monument to the 1996 Summer Olympics at Centennial Olympic Park.
"It's as cold here as it is in Denmark right now. We didn't expect that," Larsen said, waving a hand over his denim jacket, buttoned tightly over a hooded sweatshirt.
Contributing: Michael Wooten, WGRZ-TV, Buffalo; The Associated Press
How does the lake effect work and why does it create so much snowfall? Shannon Rae Green explains. (News, USA TODAY)
Video TranscriptAutomatically Generated Transcript (may not be 100% accurate)
00:03 How would you like to shovel ten feet of snow
00:05 each winter. People in buffalo New Yorkers certainly used to it
00:09 right now they're getting slammed with nearly six feet of snell.
00:13 It's all because of lake effects now Ricky can see in
00:16 this time lapse in buffalo so what is that anyway I'm
00:19 Shane gray green for USA today. The lake effect snow machine
00:23 runs on warm lake water. Early cold snaps while the Great
00:27 Lakes are still relatively warm are perfect conditions for lake effects
00:31 now. When cold air passes warm water heated air rises we'll
00:36 that warm air cooled it creates a lot of moisture which
00:39 condenses into clouds. Winds pushed those clouds over land and the
00:43 friction with the ground actually creates more snowfall. All this means
00:47 the bigger the lake the more snow that gets produced as
00:50 cold air passes over open and warm water. It often affects
00:54 groups states close to the Great Lakes like Michigan Indiana and
00:57 New York. It's creating record snowfall in buffalo right now look
01:01 at this door broken down by snowfall Leunen. Lake effect snow
01:05 is produce several records in 198122. Inches of snow fell in
01:09 Indiana and only three hours. 51 inches piled up on and
01:14 it's bridge New York in 1959 in only sixteen hours. And
01:18 in 1990s and then an unofficial record was made with 77
01:22 inches dropped on the Tug hill plateau in New York over
01:25 a 24 hour period. Keep up with the latest in the
01:28 snowstorm and that happens it's all right here on USA today
01:32 dot com.
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