This January has been kinder to Buffalo. Just 18.5 additional inches of snow have fallen, bringing the season's total to 114. But it's still early. Calculate the average monthly snowfall for the first four months of Buffalo's snow season. You can keep track of Buffalo's additional snowfall and monthly totals as this winter progresses .
Buffalo stands just to the east of Lake Erie, one of the five Great Lakes.
During the winter months, this immense body of water can turn into a snowmaking machine. The location of Lake Erie between Canada and the United States places it in the path of the strong arctic air masses that descend from our neighbor to the north. The heat and moisture from the lake rises into this arctic air and condenses into snow clouds. The wind carries these clouds across the water to land, and since the winds generally move west to east, Buffalo receives a constant flow of storm clouds. You can view a diagram of how this process works.