A lake-effect storm in the Great Lakes region that was bringing heavy snow to parts of northern New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania on Friday prompted the closure of highways, disrupting travel after the Thanksgiving holiday, as forecasters warned the storm would “bury” some areas east of Lakes Erie and Ontario.
The lake-effect snow closed a section of westbound Interstate 90 from Hamburg, N.Y., to the Pennsylvania line, the Departments of Transportation for Pennsylvania and New York said.
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.
Portions of Western New York, such as Mayville on the northern end of Chautauqua Lake about 22 miles north of Jamestown, had recorded 17 inches of snow by midafternoon on Friday, according to forecasters.
Watertown, N.Y., where less than an inch of snow had fallen on Friday afternoon, was forecast to get close to six feet of snow over the next three days.
Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York declared a state of emergency for 11 counties on Friday.
“We are so accustomed to this kind of storm,” Ms. Hochul said in an interview with Spectrum News on Friday. “We don’t love it, but it is part of who we are as New Yorkers, especially western New York and the North Country.”
The National Weather Service in Buffalo said the prolonged lake-effect snow “will bury some areas east of both Lakes Erie and Ontario.”
“There will be localized areas that will be paralyzed from the lake snow, with some interstates also being greatly impacted,” it added.
The Weather Service warned of extreme impacts from the lake-effect storm through Monday. The severity of the storm could make driving extremely dangerous or impossible in parts of those regions.
Representatives of hotels in Pennsylvania near Erie, Pa., said they were experiencing cancellations from guests who were unable to reach their destinations.
Chris Smith, who works at a Homewood Suites in Erie, near the Interstate 90 closure, said his hotel was “starting to fill up” as drivers left the snow-covered highways.
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.”
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.
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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