A round of heavy snow in form of a squall moved through the Finger Lakes this afternoon. It brought a quick dusting- to an inch of accumulation, plus gusty winds and poor visibility.
The National Weather Service temporarily issued Snow Squall Warnings for the region as the line moved from Western New York, through the Finger Lakes, and into Central New York.
Some areas saw rain and sleet mix in with the snow, but a vast majority of the region saw a heavy burst of wind-driven snow, as was evident by the video shared by Tracie Marie in Yates County.
Snow squall! @EricSnitilWx @Trapper51 @FLXJosh @jbasile99c @WHEC_SPensgen @wxbywilliams @WayneStormWatch @janie40 @scotthetsko @rmccollo @FLX_Weather @whec_rcaniglia @wnywxguy @Wxandgardenguy @shepski79 @WeatherNation #keukapark #flx #weather pic.twitter.com/uljETZkZpc
— Tracie Marie (@TracieMariBella) December 31, 2019
Occasional snow showers continued through the evening, with some locations picking up another inch or two of total accumulation.
Reaction was also swift on social media, as emergency alerts. Typically those alerts are reserved for extreme circumstances, and while the squall line was intense – some wondered if the warning could impact how seriously people take future advisories and warnings.
However, as Eric Snitil, Chief Meteorologist at WROC-TV pointed out – that band of heavy snow was intense enough to record several instances of ‘thunder snow’, which by itself is a rare event in weather.
In the last hour, there have been more than a dozen lightning strikes in the United States. All of them have been in the state of New York. All of them occurred while it was snowing (thundersnow!). So there you have it. New York: Lightning capital of the country on NYE. pic.twitter.com/S03OIDVYHE
— Eric Snitil (@EricSnitilWx) December 31, 2019
MORE FROM SOCIAL MEDIA:
What do you mean, a snow squall? pic.twitter.com/AaUPRXCq9U
— Seth Palmer (@sethpalmer3) December 31, 2019
Wow this was quite intense ❄️❄️❄️❄️ ☃️ in #henrietta #ny about 20 minutes after the snow squall emergency alert on my phone ? ? @JeremyKappell @WHEC_SPensgen @scotthetsko @News_8 @john_kucko @EricSnitilWx pic.twitter.com/a4vACBWJZD
— Jodi Payne ??? (@jodipaynephoto) December 31, 2019
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