Weather Warnings Described In The Most Buffalo Way

When you hear that there's a weather watch or a weather warning, do you know the difference?  If not, this graphic should help to clear it up.

We get a lot of pretty extreme weather here in Western New York.  After November, it's pretty common to get multiple watches and warnings from the National Weather Service in a day. They're not there to worry people.  They're there to help them to get prepared for extreme weather.

But what does that mean to you?  Should you prepare for them differently?  Should you be more worried over one than another?  Which is worse?

Erie County released a graphic that should help you to understand the system a little better and they did it in the most Buffalo way possible.

The way they describe it is that when there's a watch, all the conditions are present for the weather to occur.  Just like when you have all the ingredients for a meal but you haven't cooked them yet.  You should still prepare yourself, your home, and your vehicle as if they were about to be cooked.

However, when there's a warning, all the ingredients have already been prepared, they've been cooked already,  they're on a tray, and they're heading to your table.  You can expect that it's coming.

What started out as a Winter Storm Watch has now been upped to a Lake Effect Snow Warning starting on Wednesday night (10:00 pm) and running through Friday afternoon at 1:00 pm for Northern Erie and Genesee Counties.  They're expecting heavy lake effect snow with total snow accumulations of 10 to 20 inches in the most persistent lake snows. Winds gusting as high as 40 mph will produce considerable blowing and drifting snow.