Winter Storm Watch for WNY; Maybe Difficult to Impossible Travel

After the atrocious fall of 2022, where Western New York was hammered with two generational-like winter storms, it was a nice change of pace in 2023.

Buffalo and the surrounding suburbs saw hardly any significant snow from November through the new year. Even snow that did fall was manageable in nature.

However, our luck appears to have run out.

The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Watch for most of Western New York, with the exception of Niagara County. There's also a High Wind Watch. Both are for the weekend, from Saturday afternoon into Monday morning.

That could be elevated to a Winter Storm Warning eventually. We have to wait and see if that happens.

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The worst is expected to be Saturday afternoon into Sunday, with wind gusts of 65 mph possible and lake effect setting up by Sunday morning.

Travel could be difficult to impossible in certain areas, due to poor visibility because of the snow and wind, according to the National Weather Service.

7 inches of snow or more is possible in the most persistent snow bands, which are expected to stay south of the Buffalo metro. However, most everyone will still see some snow and those high winds this weekend.

Power outages are possible with the high winds and the temperatures will be dropping as the weekend goes on. The wind chills will be in the single digits.

The thing many people want to know about is the Buffalo Bills playoff game vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers this Sunday at Highmark Stadium.

As of now, it looks very possible that lake effect snow band will be over Orchard Park by game time. Hopefully, it stays south of the stadium but the worry is that the game has heavy snow and 40-45 mph wind gusts.

Be safe this weekend.