Continuation on the Ice Bowl and Beyond

The Ice Bowl will be played in Icy Cold conditions. Some light snow showers will develop very late on New Year's Eve, possibly following a little mixed precipitation. However, the significant shot of cold weather we'd mentioned late last week and forecasted since early this week will still be arriving on New Year's Day. Scattered Snow Showers will produce at least minor accumulations up to and during the game, so the sweepers will have to get out there and clean the ice. For those who will be attending, we recommend wearing your absolute warmest gear, since temps will be dropping thru the 20s and there will be a very significant Wind Chill during the game. As for lake effect, boundary layer winds will not favor heavy accumulations near Orchard Park, as the winds will veer to westerly, then northwesterly, taking the better organized lake effect into Ski Country and the srn tier. This "Cold Snap" will deepen on Wednesday, with Sct Snow Shwrs on a NNW flow, and persist into Thursday morning. However, as previously forecasted, a rapid return of Pacific air will follow by Friday into the weekend and beyond.

The strong La Nina conditions still favor only "shots" of cold air from time to time, with little chance for extended periods of cold weather. The primary stormtrack will be from the SW, which is favored in La Nina conditions of this amplitude. Oftentimes, these storms will pass to our west, keeping us in the warmer part of their circulations.

Newstracker Photos

Rainbow in Fredonia, NY


Letchworth Photo


Quaker Lake

La Nina & The Ice Bowl

As mentioned in a Long Range Discussion by the NWS Buffalo Forecast Office Sunday, we are now into a strengthened La Nina. That colder phase of sea surface temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific favors a dominantly strong Pacific flow into the western U.S. The current strength of La Nina is likely to produced a more dominant longer wave trough of low pressure over the interior of the western U.S. That, in turn, tends to pump up a ridge of high pressure over the SE, creating more of a SWly flow aloft over the plains, midwest, Great Lakes and NE. Under that kind of regime, lengthy arctic outbreaks in our part of the country become difficult to establish with so much of the lower 48 covered in airmasses of Pacific origin. We can get short outbreaks, as in the backlash behind Sunday's major storm system passing north of the Lakes, but Pacific air returns in fairly short over.

Between now and December 31, daytime high temperatures will run above freezing, and temperatures will average above normal. That doesn't mean the Ice Bowl in danger; nightime low temps should be cold enough for conditioning of the ice. There are early signs of a short and sharp cold outbreak around Jan 1-2. It's too early to tell if that outbreak will arrive to chill out the game and its fans, or wait until after the game.