weather

The thumb print of lake effect snow coming off of Lake Erie has settled over Wyoming County this morning, but the radar over Genesee County is clear.

The National Weather Service forecasts a partly sunny, but windy morning, with a 40 percent chance of some snow in the southern parts of the county.

Winds will whip at 20 to 30 mph with gusts of 40 mph. Temperatures will hit the low 20s.

The current temperature in Batavia is 16 degrees with a wind chill factor of minus 1 degree.

There is a 70 to 80 percent chance of snow in Batavia early this afternoon, dropping off to 40 to 50 percent later in the afternoon and into the evening. The wind will die down only slighly.

 From the National Weather Service:

..LAKE EFFECT SNOW WARNING HAS EXPIRED...

THE LAKE EFFECT SNOW WARNING IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT.

LAKE SNOWS HAVE MOVED SOUTH. JUST SCATTERED SNOW SHOWERS ARE EXPECTED FROM NOW ON.

Traffic is reportedly at a standstill on Route 63 near Johnny's bar.

Dispatch reports numerous calls, but the dispatcher says, "we're trying to figure out what's going on out there."

Law enforcement is in route.

UPDATE: The situation on Route 63 sounds like a mess. There is a jack-knifed truck holding up traffic, and (unrelated) one truck driver is filing a complaint against another truck driver for assault.

UPDATE 8:10 p.m.: Westbound Route 20 is being closed so that a DOT plow can be extracted from a ditch.

UPDATE 8:15 p.m.: Looking at the radar map, the storm is well south of Batavia. The heaviest concentration of snow is falling from Attica up to Bethany. Darien and Alexander are on the border of the storm.

UPDATE 8:44 p.m.: A driver stuck on Richmond Avenue called for a tow. He was told: Four-hour wait.

UPDATE 9:47 p.m.: It sounds like the car mentioned in the update above has been freed from its snow  bank. Also, it sounds like a truck in Pavilion is blocking traffic now.

UPDATE 9:57 p.m.: Route 63 is open again. Also, a law enforcement officer in Texas Town is reporting one of his suspects is eight-months pregnant and is feeling pressure and discomfort. We don't know why she was arrested. She's being taken to UMMC.

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Emergency crews responded to a report of a rollover accident on the Thruway and when they got there, there was nobody in the car and nobody around, but the car was on its roof.

Meanwhile, a semi-truck on Route 33 is reportedly "driving people" off the road. He happens to be heading toward a roadblock set up earlier this evening because of a jack-knifed truck near Seven Springs Road.

Also, inmate trustees are clearing Porter Road so law enforcement has access to the jail.

There continue to be reports of accidents, cars and trucks stuck in various locations.

UPDATE 6:08 p.m.: Route 33 is open.

UPDATE 6:13: Route 19 is open.

The lake-effect snowstorm hitting Genesee County isn't expected to abate for a few more hours, according to the National Weather Service.

A band of heavy lake-effect snow will continue from the towns south of Buffalo and -east across central and southern Genesee County. Expect this band to remain nearly stationary through early evening before settling farther south into the more distant south-towns later this evening, finally moving out of the area by late evening.

The storm is expected to continue dropping one- to two-inches an hour. Strong winds will create near blizzard conditions.

Meanwhile, there are still lots of drivers out on the roadways and reports continue to pour into the Dispatch Center of cars stuck in ditches.

A travel advisory issued by Sheriff Gary Maha remains in effect, recommending only necessary travel due to weather conditions.

Downtown, it's pretty much white-out conditions now.

A young man walks down Center Street wearing shorts.

Adam Miller, like most downtown businesses, is open.

Feeling pretty confident about the ability of my four-wheel drive truck with new all-weather tires, when I left Le Roy this afternoon, I decided to take Route 19 to the Byron-Bergen area and then head back to Batavia.

Route 33 proved to be an adventure. I passed at least four vehicles off the road.  At times visibility was no more than 5 or 10 feet and I had to crawl along at about 5 mph.  

I was surprised at how many people driving just regular passenger vehicles were out on the road after all of the warnings about treacherous conditions.

Due to the severe-weather travel advisories and lake-effect snow warnings, the following closures have been reported to us:

United Memorial Medical Center outpatient sites: 

• Byron Family Care
• Batavia Family Care
• Tountas Family Care
• Tonawanda Seneca Family Care
• The Jerome Center
• Corporate Health
• Pembroke Diagnostics
• LeRoy Diagnostics
• Surgical Practice Office

Patients with appointments for today have been called and will be asked to reschedule.

The Hospital and Emergency Department are open. Please call 9-1-1 for emergency medical attention.

Genesee Community College is closing at 4 p.m. -- no classes for tonight.
http://www.genesee.edu/

The Byron-Bergen Public Library is closed today.

You can view current conditions on the Thruway from three webcams positioned along the route in the county here.

Sheriff Gary Maha has issued a travel advisory for Genesee County.

"No unnecessary travel is advised," Maha said in a statement.

He noted that all roads in Genesee County suffer from poor visibility and slippery conditions due to blowing and drifting snow.

There are several working accidents in the county.

Maha noted this is an advisory and not a ban.

More traffic woes:

An elderly man was stuck in his vehicle off the roadway, west of Wortendyke and east of Upton roads. But now he's at home and a tow truck is en route to get his car.

There's a vehicle stuck on Main Street in front of the jail in Batavia.

There's a vehicle sticking out into the roadway at Ellicott and Linwood in Batavia.

Big-rig in ditch in Pembroke.

As if things weren't bad enough out there, youths are reported to be disrupting traffic, throwing snowballs at vehicles near Washington Avenue and Ellicott Street.

(Law enforcement and emergency crews are swamped and now someone has to deal with this, too.)

There's a motor-vehicle accident with injuries on the Thruway in the westbound lane about a half-mile from the Batavia exit (mile marker 389 and a half, east of the Route 48 interchange). Emergency crews are responding.

Reader Dan Jones unfortunately is driving on the Thruway and called to say: "Tell your readers to stay the hell off the road."

Also, there's a car off the road at Pearl and Lover's Lane.

And intermittant power outages are wreaking havor with some communications, including being able to book people at the jail.

You know it's bad weather when a responder tells dispatch: "I think I'm on location."

UPDATE (by Howard): Picture above sent in from Dan Jones depicting the white out conditions on the Thruway.

The sun is out in Oakfield, at least for now.

More pictures after the jump:

From the sounds of things on the scanner this morning, law enforcement is dealing with a lot of issues, from stuck vehicles -- including a snow plow -- around the county.

All Genesee County schools are closed.

The National Weather Service says the lake-effect snow warning remains in effect until 10 p.m.

"A ban of lake-effect snow south of Buffalo and Batavia will continue to settle southward, ans slip further southward before drifting back north into areas south of Buffalo and Batavia for a while this afternoon," says the warning.

High winds also continue to blow.

Snow fall in affected areas will hit at about 1- to 2-inches per hour.

UPDATE: Please use comments to provide information on how the storm is impacting your corner of Genesee County.