Buffalo Lake-Effect Snow Photos: The November 2014 Snowvember Storm

In November 2014, Lake Erie buried the southern suburbs of Buffalo, New York, under as much as seven feet of snow in three days, while the city's airport a few miles north stayed almost clear. These photographs from the storm locals call "Snowvember" show both halves of that story: neighbourhoods drowned in snow and the sharp edge of the cloud band that produced it.

Snowvember 2014: the Buffalo lake-effect storm

The snow began on the evening of 17 November 2014. For the next three days, narrow bands of lake-effect snow sat almost motionless over the Southtowns, the suburbs south and east of Buffalo. Parts of Erie County received 5 to 7 feet (1.5–2.1 m). The highest total, 88 inches (about 2.2 m), was measured at Cowlesville in Wyoming County, while Buffalo Niagara International Airport recorded under 17 inches.

The National Weather Service’s 17–19 November account from its Buffalo office documents the event band by band, with maps showing how tightly the heaviest snow was concentrated.

How lake-effect snow forms over Lake Erie

In November, Lake Erie still holds much of its summer warmth. When Arctic air blows across the open water, the lake warms and moistens the lowest layer of air. That air rises, cools and builds tall snow clouds that unload as soon as they reach the shore.

Forecasters look for air at least 13 °C colder than the lake surface and for a long fetch, the distance the wind travels over open water. A south-westerly wind blowing along Lake Erie's long axis gives one of the longest fetches on the Great Lakes, and Buffalo sits at the lake's north-eastern end. When the wind direction holds steady, the snow concentrates in a band only a few miles wide. That is the wall of cloud visible in the wider photographs: heavy snow on one side, open sky on the other.

What the storm did to Western New York

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz nicknamed the storm "Knife" because it cut through the heart of the community. The impact matched the name:

• A long stretch of the New York State Thruway (I-90) was closed and became impassable.
• Amtrak suspended service west of Albany.
• More than 300 buildings were damaged by the weight of snow on their roofs, and over three dozen were destroyed.
• The NFL moved the Buffalo Bills' home game against the New York Jets to Ford Field in Detroit.
• The storm was blamed for 14 deaths in Western New York, many of them heart attacks while shovelling.

The aerial view of buried houses shows why the clean-up took so long: driveways, streets and cars disappeared under a single smooth blanket, and the New York National Guard joined one of the largest snow-removal operations in the state's history.

The cloud band and the streets below

Seen together, the photographs explain lake-effect snow better than any diagram. From a distance, the cloud boundary marks the footprint of the band. Down among the houses, you see what several feet of snow means for daily life. In a storm like this, shovel heavy snow in small loads, take breaks and keep vents and at least one exit clear.

Our companion Buffalo gallery stays at street level with more photographs from the same week. For other famous American snowstorms, read about three historic U.S. winter storms.