A lake-effect storm in the Great Lakes region was expected to bring several feet of snow in areas of Michigan, Northern New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania through the weekend, disrupting travel after the Thanksgiving holiday.
The storm, which began earlier in the week, had already brought more than eight inches of snow to portions of Marquette County in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula by Friday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service.
Watertown, N.Y., where less than an inch of snow had fallen on Friday afternoon, was forecast to receive up to five feet over the next three days.
The Weather Service warned of extreme impacts from the lake-effect storm through Monday morning in areas of Northern New York east of Lake Ontario, as well as portions of Ohio and Pennsylvania along the Lake Erie shore.
The severity of the storm could make driving extremely dangerous or impossible in parts of those regions.
Lake-effect storms occur when cold air moves across a large body of warmer water. They typically happen in late fall and early winter.
“The lakes started out at basically a record warm for late November,” said David Roth, a forecaster with the Weather Service.
“Even in areas that are used to it, this is their first real lake-effect of the season,” he added. “They’re going to feel this. This will be a ‘welcome to winter’ for them.”
Portions of Interstate 81, which runs through Jefferson and Oswego Counties in New York, were within the area of the severe weather. Along the shores of Lake Erie, hazardous conditions were expected on Interstate 90.
According to AAA, the automobile organization, nearly 80 million people were expected to travel for Thanksgiving this year. About three million people in the United States were expected to travel by air on Sunday.
Erie International Airport in Pennsylvania was closed on Friday afternoon, and MBS International in Saginaw County, Mich., and Akron-Canton Airport in Ohio were de-icing aircraft, according to the F.A.A.
More than four feet of snow could fall downwind of Lake Ontario through the weekend, and up to three feet of snow was possible across portions of northeastern Ohio and northern Pennsylvania. Up to two feet was predicted to accumulate in areas of the Upper Peninsula in Michigan.
The first lake-effect snowstorm of the season “tends to be pretty exceptional,” Mr. Roth said. “When this happens is usually October, or much earlier in November.”
Buffalo could receive up to six inches of snow through Sunday, when the Bills host the San Francisco 49ers at their stadium in nearby Orchard Park, N.Y.
While the snow was expected to pile up, an Arctic blast was moving across the Northern Plains and the Midwest on Friday, with the wind chill across parts of the Dakotas and Minnesota plunging to 15 degrees below zero.
The Weather Service said on social media that the cold would persist into next week, with the Northern Plains and parts of the Midwest experiencing their lowest temperatures since mid-February.
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