(WXXI News & AP) There is some very windy weather forecast for the Rochester area and other parts of Western NY this weekend.
Some rain showers are expected Saturday night, with a low of 38, and windy conditions. There is a High Wind Warning in effect for counties including Monroe, Genesee, Orleans and Wyoming from 10pm Saturday to 7am Sunday, with gusts up to 60 mph possible.
But the accumulating snow in our region is forecast for parts of Western & Southwestern NY, where some areas south of Buffalo are under a Lake Effect Snow Warning.
Some parts of those counties could see 6 to 10 inches of snow, with the same conditions forecast for the eastern end of Lake Ontario, in the Oswego area.
Gov. Cuomo says the NYS DOT and the Thruway Authority are ready to respond to problems caused by lake effect snow.
People fired up snowblowers and dug out their shovels Saturday after the first significant snowstorm of the season dumped between a few inches and 20 inches of snow across the Upper Midwest, blanketing a swath from South Dakota to Michigan.
The storm created hazardous travel conditions and caused more than 500 flight cancelations. A blast of much colder air was following the storm.
The National Weather Service said the snow, which first fell in South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa on Friday, would continue in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan before heading northeast into Canada late Saturday.
Snow totals in the northern suburbs of Chicago topped initial forecasts of six to 10 inches, said National Weather Service meteorologist Amy Seeley — 12.5 inches in Woodstock and 11.7 inches in Roscoe. It's unusual for the area's first snowfall of the season to dump more than 6 inches, Seeley said.
Chicago's O'Hare International Airport had 7.1 inches of snow by noon Saturday, which forced the cancelation of about 350 flights in and out of the busy airport, according to the tracking website FlightAware.com. Midway International Airport had canceled about 175 flights. Some Rochester flights to Chicago were also affected.
Travel conditions, at least for the Rochester area, improve next week with a high on Wednesday expected of 48 degrees with sunny skies, sunny and 52 on Thanksgiving and cloudy and 56 for a high next Friday.
