Long-commute-in-winter-filter: Help me not get stuck in snow every week

January 18, 2024 8:58 AM

My job has me driving from central New York State to Toronto each week, from now through the end of March. I want to know, before I get in the car, whether the trip is feasible or not. Extra difficulty: the most efficient route takes me through Buffalo / Niagara Falls (land of sudden lake-effect snow).

So far, my strategy is to check multiple spots along my route before I leave. Driving to Toronto this week, I re-routed north of Buffalo to avoid lake-effect snow. I managed to just skirt the storm - I could see it to my south as I drove under clear skies - that worked out fine.

But then coming home, the weather reports were repeatedly, wildly inaccurate. Before I crossed the border into the US I checked weather for spots along the way, and everything looked decently clear. Then immediately after I crossed the border, I got an emergency warning on my phone announcing that the thruway was closed. I pulled into Niagara Falls and ended up sitting through a whiteout for several hours. Eventually, Niagara Falls cleared to sunny blue skies and the NY State Thruway site reported mostly dry, clear, roads. So I got back on in the car - and then I ended up creeping along the highway in heavy snow for a good hour. Sure enough, when I stopped along the drive, the thruway site showed snow and ice all the way from the border through Rochester - when I had left, mind you, almost all of that had been reported dry and clear.

I realize I might not always be able to make this trip if the weather is bad, and also that I might get stuck in the Toronto area for an extra night now and then. What I'd really like to avoid is getting stuck along the journey.

After yesterday, I'm at a loss for a good strategy re: how to do that. I do understand that this is a tricky trip - I've lived in cold snowy climates most of my life, I've even commuted to Buffalo in past winters. But yesterday, it seems that the weather was changing too quickly for me to use weather reports effectively. That, for me, is new.

To those who know this region's winters, and/or who have commuted in tough-to-predict inclement weather in the past: how would you deal with this? Can I improve my prediction-power in the coming weeks? How?

posted by marlys to Travel & Transportation (14 answers total)

511NY has been helpful for me in my early morning commuting.

Not perfect, but helpful.
posted by sciencegeek at 9:00 AM on January 18 [1 favorite]

mathowie just blogged about an app that may be of use.
posted by terrapin at 9:08 AM on January 18 [1 favorite]

The prevailing winds in the area typically blow from the southwest, so looking at a large weather map of the continental US and seeing if there's significant rain or snow predicted today for Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and Indiana can give you a 24 hour heads up on whether it may snow in Toronto/New York tomorrow. It's not perfect, but you can check the central US radar at a glance and feel fairly confident if you need to be worried the next day or not.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:16 AM on January 18 [1 favorite]

Yep, seconding Matt and Weather On The Way. There is also the Windy app. We drive a large cargo van long distances periodically and I use both those apps to keep an eye on road and weather conditions on our route.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:32 AM on January 18 [1 favorite]

Windy is pretty nice for looking at weather maps.
posted by grouse at 10:18 AM on January 18

Does it make sense to go via Watertown and Kingston on the east side of Lake Ontario? It's a longer trip but maybe less of a chance you'll be snowed in somewhere.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 10:30 AM on January 18 [1 favorite]

This only helps for the U.S. side, but NOAA forecasts are valuable, if a little bit dated in its web design. (You hover the mouse pointer over the map-type/time link to show various layers.)
posted by credulous at 10:51 AM on January 18

I live in Buffalo. Aside from the lake effect snow that we get being a bit unpredictable, the weather forecasts for the two storms we got were very vague, and thus not remotely helpful. I don't know why it was different for these storms than in the past. The forecasts would be even less helpful for someone not from the area, as they often referred to the areas that would be getting snow in generic terms like "typical heavy snow areas" rather than specific towns. We know what those areas/towns are, but people not from here don't.

On top of that, there was a countywide driving ban last Sunday for storm one, and again on Tuesday for storm 2. These seemed to be a little excessive and probably in response to the bad response to the blizzard we had over Christmas in 2022.

None of that is probably remotely helpful, but I guess my point is that even those of us who live here get caught by surprise sometimes. The snow generally does hit south of the city, though, so if you're coming in on the 90, cross at Lewiston or Niagara Falls, rather than the Peace Bridge in Buffalo. If it looks like there's weather you want to avoid, you could try getting on route 104 north of Rochester, and that will take you right into Lewiston where you can get on the Lewiston/Queenston bridge.
posted by jonathanhughes at 11:03 AM on January 18 [4 favorites]

Having lived in Eastern Ontario, I would say going through Watertown or anywhere East will be no help at all. Napanee alone is awful, with that big, windy curve. You would be wasting hours, and the number of trucks is unbelievable.
posted by Enid Lareg at 11:08 AM on January 18 [3 favorites]

To follow up on johnathanhughes- this week’s weather was an unusual once-a-year sort of event. Don’t use it as a measuring stick for your travel for the rest of the winter.

I mean, the Buffalo Bills postponed a playoff football game and had their fans come to shovel out the stadium!! I grew up watching American news/football from the other side of the lake and stuff like that is just super rare.

The time to watch the forecast is before you attempt your trip to Toronto. Use the Environment Canada app as well. If you see weather warnings in Toronto or Niagara Falls for any part of your journey, don’t go. Lake effect means the snow is worse in Buffalo.
posted by shock muppet at 12:18 PM on January 18 [4 favorites]

So any bet is only going to be a bet. That's just how the lake effect storms are -- a place might have clear blue skies or be getting 4 inches an hour depending on where the band moves. I hear what you're saying and... yeah, that's a thing. That happens. It's rare for it to be really bad as far north as NF, but it does happen.

When you say the thruway site I'm guessing you mean nittec? They have live cameras on all the freeways in wny.

I think your best bet if there's a storm in the forecast at all will be Buffalo tv stations weather or the NWS Buffalo office twitter/facebook. They're usually pretty good about at least predicting whether the band will be in the northtowns, city, or southtowns.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 12:55 PM on January 18 [1 favorite]

I travel on 81 regularly (still not commute-level regularly) so have been having to check into this on the east side since 2020 (before then I usually wouldn't drive in the winter), and after a very, very bad experience last year I've tried to be more systematic/careful about this. I've still not found a better alternative to spot checking weather forecasts on the route; based on experience I have evolved a bunch of specific places that I check through the Jefferson County / Tug Hill area (lake effect snow can be so micro that this has occasionally missed something). I realize this isn't the route you are primarily asking about but in case this is useful to someone, roughly: Landsdowne ON, Wellesley Island NY, Watertown, Adams, Pulaski, Mexico, Parish, Syracuse. Usually any of the Jefferson County ones will turn up a lake effect warning if there is one. I've also generally had decent results (especially early season) from simply googling for news articles on lake effect; if it's bad enough that there's signs up on 81, there's almost always at least a short article somewhere.

Does it make sense to go via Watertown and Kingston on the east side of Lake Ontario? It's a longer trip but maybe less of a chance you'll be snowed in somewhere.

Just to expand on an earlier answer, this route may be viable sometimes when Buffalo isn't, but it goes directly on 81 between Lake Ontario and the Tug Hill Plateau, which has the greatest greatest average snowfall in NY state. It's not perfectly yoked to what's happening west of lake Ontario so it can be better (or worse), but usually if there's one there seems to be the other (to some degree). If there's bad lake effect snow, you essentially have to go to Montreal to get around it (and I've seen it affect highway 401 quite catastrophically too, not sure how common this is).
posted by advil at 2:45 PM on January 18 [3 favorites]

Just checking: y'all got snow tires, right? Having snowflake* winter-rated tires is probably the most important safety factor on this commute. And yeah, changing conditions are hard to predict sometimes.
posted by ovvl at 5:21 PM on January 18 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: This is really helpful - from recommended apps and sites to discussion of the Watertown/above the lake option (I've wondered about that), to particularities about Buffalo-area snow and reassurance that this recent storm is not the norm. This makes me much better equipped.

(I'll forgo marking best answers, rather than marking almost everything! Thanks all...)
posted by marlys at 6:38 PM on January 18 [1 favorite]