The Lake Breeze Newsletter

The leaves are all gone, Thanksgiving travel has passed, and the calendar now reads December. So begins what we refer to as “meteorological winter” –  the months of December through February. Many portions of our area have already seen a couple of significant lake effect snowfalls, while other areas have only seen a few inches, but it’s quite clear that we are rapidly transitioning into the winter season. As we do that, you can be assured your National Weather Service is ready to keep you warned and informed every step of the way.

Each autumn, we host webinars for all of our partners: federal, state, local, and broadcast media. These webinars highlight the upcoming winter outlook as well as impending improvements to our products and services that occur as our agency continuously works to better hone our message. Further, collaboratively with our neighbors to the north, Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), we host seasonal scientific workshops to ensure our forecasters are up-to-date on the most cutting edge forecasting and scientific techniques that help to ensure a common baseline for collaboration across our shared border, across which millions of dollars a trade in day takes place. These efforts are in addition to our winter SKYWARN spotter program, which trained hundreds of local residents again this year in a combination of in person and remote sessions on hazardous winter weather, winter safety, and winter reporting. All of these endeavors from the NWS in Buffalo are but a microcosm of a larger effort to ensure the leaders and residents of our area have the best, most actionable information to ensure their safety through the winter season.

One improvement the NWS is making this year with regard to winter weather has to do with how we message cold weather. In the past, we have issued Wind Chill Advisories and Wind Chill Warnings for days with apparent temperatures below -15 degrees (-20 degrees for Lewis and Jefferson counties) and -25 degrees (-30 degrees for Lewis and Jefferson counties) respectively. This became confusing, though, when there were days with little or no wind. Even with no wind, temperatures this cold are brutally dangerous, and frostbite and hypothermia can set in rapidly. To account for this gap, the NWS has changed the terminology for these products. At the same criteria, we will now issue Cold Weather Advisories and Extreme Cold Warnings. This allows us to account for an apparent temperature to your body irrespective of the wind. While we haven’t seen a true arctic air outbreak yet, you will see these new advisories and warnings in the season ahead.

Regardless of the time of year, we always have an eye on how we can keep the residents of western and north central New York better informed and more aware of impending hazardous weather. We will continue to be in the community, working with elected officials, first responders, community leaders, and your local media to ensure you get the best and most timely information possible. From all of us at the National Weather Service in Buffalo, we wish you the happiest of holidays, as well as a safe and happy New Year!

On the first day of September in 1924, Park Superintendent DeForest A. Matteson made the very first weather observation at Allegany State Park, near the present-day Quaker Area. Established only three years earlier, the park in 1924 looked much different from the Allegany State Park we know today, with the Quaker Bridge area being the only section developed at the time. Mr. Matteson took these early observations using a homemade temperature shelter and a Julien P. Friez & Son Standard Rain Gauge, both of which were similar to the temperature shelter and rain gauge located just up the hill from the Administration Building. While temperatures are now measured using an electronic sensor, a more modern standard rain gauge is still used for precipitation.

Upon the completion of the Administration Building in the fall of 1930, the weather station was moved from the Quaker Bridge entrance of the park to the residence of the superintendent of Allegany State Park, DeForest Matteson, near the Admin Building. On October 11, 1957, the Park Commission proposed moving the weather station 6.75 miles south, near a fire tower close to the Pennsylvania State Line. Mr. Matteson convinced the Park Commission to keep the Coop Weather Station near the Administration Building. The Commission agreed, and the station was moved to its present location on the hill just west of the Admin Building on November 1, 1957.

Mr. Matteson retired on October 31, 1957, after 33 years of dedicated service taking weather observations for the U.S. Weather Bureau (the predecessor of the National Weather Service). On November 1, 1957, the Park Rangers and State Park Police took over the operation of the weather station.

After 65 years of weather observations by the State Park Police, the weather station moved down the hall to the Night Desk on February 8, 2022, where it continues to take the morning readings to this day.

With 100 years of daily weather observations by the State Park staff, the weather station at Allegany State Park holds a special designation within the National Weather Service’s Cooperative Observer Network as a Historical Climate Network (HCN) observing station. The designation as an HCN station is only bestowed upon about 10 percent of the observing stations across the United States. HCN stations must have a long record of high-quality observations and very few station relocations. These HCN Coop stations were developed to provide a baseline dataset for monitoring the climate of the United States.

The warm days of summer lingered well into late autumn, but winter will arrive and it’s time to look ahead at what may be in store for this upcoming season. To plan for winter, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has released its winter outlook for the United States. 

Like all winters, one of the biggest index values that we look at first is the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which can be predicted fairly accurately months or even up to a year in advance. This index examines at water temperatures and their anomalies in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. The departures of water temperatures from normal has a major influence on wind circulation and the jet stream over North America, and can impact us right here in the eastern Great Lakes.  This winter, the ENSO is forecasted to be neutral to weak La Niña, meaning the water temperatures near the equatorial eastern Pacific will be near to slightly below normal.  

We find other oscillations or indexes play a larger role in the overall pattern in winter when La Nina is weak or ENSO is neutral. These indexes can only be predicted more than just a few weeks to a month in advance. This makes it more difficult to make a forecast for the upcoming winter. Local experience and research has found that a weaker ENSO signal can have more variability in the weather patterns as a weaker jet stream allows for more frequent intrusions of the Polar Vortex southward, sending arctic air southward over the Great Lakes region. This will especially be true when compared to last winter which featured a persistent west to east Pacific flow of mild air, with just brief instances of below normal temperature air masses.

While we may experience more arctic blasts this winter, the official NOAA winter forecast has the greatest odds for above normal air temperatures averaged through the three winter months of December 2024, January 2025, and February 2025. Even though odds favor above normal temperatures, below normal temperatures averaged over the three months of winter are still a possibility, they are just lower prospects when compared to above normal temperatures. 

Precipitation is also favored to be above normal across Western New York. Precipitation in this case includes both snowfall and rainfall through the three winter months of December 2024, January 2025, and February 2025. Sometimes the difference for above or below normal snowfall in a winter season is the placement of lake effect snow bands occurs, as one or two large events can easily place a winter climate site into above normal snowfall. Through a typical winter Western New York and North Central New York averages 10 lake effect snow events a year, with an event defined as producing at least 7 inches of snow.

If you haven't prepared for winter yet, now would be a good time to prepare for winter including: finding those gloves, boots and hats, getting snow removal equipment ready to use, and preparing an emergency winter car kit.

How and when did you become interested in meteorology? While I was always interested in the weather throughout my childhood, I cannot pinpoint a singular weather event that pointed the compass towards this career path, unlike many of my colleagues. A few of my weather memories include my aunt sharing a video of the damage across southern Florida caused by Hurricane Andrew when she lived in the Florida Keys as well as being evacuated from the Outer Banks as Hurricane Bonnie approached the Carolina coastline. I remember hunkering down during Hurricane Isabel that led to extended power outages while also seeing the storm surge damage at my relatives’ houses along the Chesapeake Bay. However, I’d say it wasn’t until my high school environmental science class when we learned about atmospheric circulations along with general weather, water, and climate prediction that made me think back to these weather memories throughout my life and I decided this was the career path for me to help save lives and property and mitigate the impacts of hazardous weather.  

Describe the path leading up to your job as Science Operations Officer at NWS Buffalo, NY? I received my Bachelor of Science in Meteorology at Penn State University in 2015 and pursued a Master of Science in Atmospheric Science at Texas Tech University graduating in 2017. While at Texas Tech, I researched lightning and turbulent motions to investigate reasons for flash size variations throughout a thunderstorm using observations and numerical modeling. I had the opportunity to participate in field projects that included deployment of mobile radars as well as maintenance of the West Texas Lightning Mapping Array. After graduate school, my wife got a job working with the state of Wyoming so we moved to northern Colorado. I worked as a Research Associate for Colorado State University and the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere in Fort Collins. At CSU/CIRA, I participated in various research projects including operating a ship-borne mobile radar in the Eastern Pacific Intertropical Convergence Zone for a multi-week voyage and working on improvements to satellite data assimilation. After a year, I began working for the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Cheyenne, Wyoming in the Fall of 2018 as a Meteorologist. I spent 6 years in Cheyenne forecasting high winds, winter storms, severe convective weather, fire weather conditions, and debris flow flash flooding over previously burned areas. During my time in Cheyenne, I also received a promotion to Lead Meteorologist. When the weather wasn’t busy (not too often in southeast Wyoming), I was frequently working on various projects in the office including the development of a machine learning models to improve high wind forecasting for gap and downsloping winds at multiple high-impact interstate highway routes traversing the complex terrain of southeast Wyoming. While I do enjoy forecasting the weather, my passion lies on the intersection of research and forecast operations trying to investigate where and how we can do better with our forecasts, messaging, and understanding of the atmosphere.

What do you think will be your favorite part about your new position? My favorite part about the new position will be having the opportunity to work directly with the operational forecast staff to assess their needs to improve the accuracy of the forecast, warnings, and the communication of hazardous weather conditions. Modeling systems and observation networks for meteorological data continue to improve and the emergence of artificial intelligence and machine learning create numerous opportunities to integrate new methods for forecasting hazardous weather conditions into our operations. This will also involve training the forecast staff in best practices for applying these new applications and technologies into everyday operations. Additionally, I’ve always been interested in math and statistics, which will continue to be in play as the NWS continues to evolve into a probabilistic mindset with interrogating and communicating forecast information. 

Another aspect of the position will be branching out to nearby academic institutions and research facilities for collaborative work on local research projects. I look forward to getting to meet various faculty members in the meteorology and climate realm. Furthermore, I’m excited to help mentor the next generation of meteorologists by supporting our local student volunteer program. Students interested in careers in meteorology can shadow forecasters in real-time operations and work on various projects around the office. 

What is the one weather event that stands out to you? While I was in the DC Metro area for the 2012 Derecho producing a constant light(ning) show and strong winds leaving the entire area without power for over a week, I’ll lean towards the winter weather side as I’m also no stranger to harsh winters and crippling snowstorms. In March 2021, southeast Wyoming and northern Colorado was impacted by a historic blizzard with nearly 10 consecutive hours of blizzard conditions, wind gusts over 50 mph, 30+ inches of snow accumulation and drifts 5 to 10 feet tall. Interstates 25 and 80 across the region were closed for an extended period of time as strong winds and snow drifts made snow removal efforts nearly impossible at the time. I was one of six meteorologists who stayed in the office for 5 days (4 nights) alternating 12 hour forecasting shifts through the height of the storms as well as the post-storm recovery until crews could clear enough roadways across town for our safe return to home. This was also an extremely impactful event among the agriculture community as well due to the calving season for local ranchers. Overall, it was great to see the dedication of my coworkers towards the NWS Mission leading up to, during, and after the event providing phenomenal service from early identification of a high-impact event to delivering the forecast message to partners and the public.

What advice would you give people interested in meteorology? Stay in touch with what interests you most in meteorology, but always be open to learning more! For anyone interested in meteorology, COMET MetEd is a great resource to learn more on a plethora of topics related to the meteorology field. For students, hiring managers will look for “meteorology and what”. Do you have coding skills, GIS skills, graphic design skills, or communications skills? Focus on at least a “plus one” skill that can be utilized in the meteorology field to make yourself stand out.

Tell us something most people don’t know about you.  In my free time, I’m fairly active with various outdoor activities and sports from camping and hiking to playing soccer, softball, golf, and disc golf. However, not many people know that over the past few years I have tried my hand (or slide) at curling. After the US won gold at the 2018 Winter Olympics, my wife and I took a Learn to Curl class at the local ice arena. From there, our interest grew enough to participate in the local curling league during the winter months in Cheyenne. While it might not look too exciting on TV, curling is a fun game of strategy and even cardio (yes, you can get winded by sweeping). Once I get settled in from my recent move, I may have to stop by the local curling club to throw the rock.

As far as the outdoors go, my wife and I have a goal to visit every National Park in the US. During our time living in northern Colorado and southeast Wyoming, we would make frequent trips to Rocky Mountain National Park to hike, snowshoe, and take scenic rides up Trail Ridge Road. Of the 29 parks I’ve visited so far, my favorite was Mount Rainier National Park in Washington with all the jaw-dropping views of this prominent 14,000ft volcano in the Cascade Range. However, my favorite hike within a park was The Narrows in Zion National Park. Hiking through a river within a slot canyon was quite a unique and fun experience. While a minivan sized boulder did fall down through the canyon walls into the river 100 feet in front of us at one point, the experience as a whole was like non-other.