Buffalo Snow Forecast 2026-2027
Buffalo averages 95 inches a season at the airport, but the southtowns have measured 65 inches in one storm. Real NOAA data on both, plus this winter's outlook.
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Updated for winter 2026-2027. Buffalo averages about 95 inches of snow a season at its official airport station, but the real number depends entirely on which part of the city you mean: the southern suburbs have measured more than twice that in a single storm. This guide covers what the airport record actually shows, what the two famous recent storms really measured, and what NOAA's historic-strength El Nino means for this coming winter.
How much snow does Buffalo get in a normal winter?
About 95 inches a season, based on the 30-year period from 1990-91 through 2019-20 at Buffalo Niagara International Airport, the city's official climate station. That average hides huge swings: the driest of the last 10 winters brought 55 inches, the snowiest brought 134. It is a benchmark, not a prediction.
Which months get the most snow in Buffalo?
December 2026 and January 2027 will carry the heaviest snow this winter, based on the 30-year record. January averages 26.7 inches and December 25.5, together over half of a full season. February 2027 follows at 18.0 inches, then March at 14.1, with November and April both under 10.
| Month | Average snowfall (1991-2020) |
|---|---|
| October 2026 | 0.9" |
| November 2026 | 7.8" |
| December 2026 | 25.5" |
| January 2027 | 26.7" |
| February 2027 | 18.0" |
| March 2027 | 14.1" |
| April 2027 | 2.5" |
That pattern holds for the whole region, not just the airport: both of Buffalo's most famous storms, Snowvember in November 2014 and the Elliott blizzard in December 2022, struck in this exact window, the stretch this table flags as lake-effect's most active, before Lake Erie's own surface ice finally shuts the machine off.
Where does Buffalo actually get the most snow, and how much can you expect there?
The southern suburbs, in the same November-through-February window the airport table above shows, but at far higher totals. Airport records govern this guide's seasonal numbers, but the two real storms already covered here show the actual range worth planning around block by block, not just citywide.
| Area | A big lake-effect storm (real, cited) |
|---|---|
| Buffalo Niagara Airport (the "official" number) | 16.9" (Nov 2014), 50.3" (Dec 2022) |
| Snyder | 56.5" over 5 days (Dec 2022) |
| West Seneca | 57" (Nov 2014) |
| Gardenville | 60" (Nov 2014) |
| Lancaster | 63" (Nov 2014) |
| South Cheektowaga | 65" (Nov 2014) |
If you live or are traveling south and east of the airport, in the towns this table names, expect any given lake-effect event to run two to four times heavier than the airport number reported on the news that night. That gap is not a forecasting error; it is the actual geography of how this lake produces snow.
Why does the airport report so much less snow than the rest of Buffalo?
Lake-effect snow falls in narrow bands set by wind direction off Lake Erie, and the airport sits north of where those bands usually land. The southern suburbs, places like Orchard Park and West Seneca, sit in that band far more often, so their storm totals can run 50 to 65 inches.
How has Buffalo's snowfall changed over the last 10 winters?
Unevenly, with no steady upward or downward trend. The 2022-23 season brought 133.6 inches, the highest of the decade, while 2015-16 brought only 55.1. Both are real winters at the same station, seven years apart, which is the honest range a forecast has to work with.
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| Winter | Buffalo airport total |
|---|---|
| 2015-16 | 55.1" |
| 2016-17 | 76.4" |
| 2017-18 | 112.3" |
| 2018-19 | 118.8" |
| 2019-20 | 69.2" |
| 2020-21 | 77.2" |
| 2021-22 | 97.4" |
| 2022-23 | 133.6" |
| 2023-24 | 71.3" |
| 2024-25 | 77.6" |
What was Buffalo's snowiest winter on record?
1976-77, when the airport measured 199.4 inches for the season, the year of the Blizzard of '77. No winter since has come close: the next highest, 2000-01, reached 158.7 inches, and 2022-23's 133.6 inches is only the fifth-snowiest winter in the station's full daily record.
What is Buffalo's biggest snowstorm on record?
Depends on whether you mean one calendar day or a full storm. The biggest single calendar day is 33.9 inches on December 10, 1995. The biggest multi-day storm total is the Christmas 2001 lake-effect event, which dropped 81.5 inches over seven days, December 22 through 28, at the same airport station.
Those are two different records because a calendar-day total and a rolling storm total measure different things, the same distinction this site applies to every city's snow record. The 2001 storm's 3-day total alone, 56.1 inches, would still rank as one of Buffalo's biggest storms even on its own.
How much snow fell during Buffalo's 2014 "Snowvember" storm?
16.9 inches at the airport, but far more in the southern suburbs that made the storm famous. The National Weather Service's own survey recorded 65 inches in South Cheektowaga, 63 in Lancaster, 60 in Gardenville, and 57 in West Seneca, all a few miles south of the airport gauge. The storm killed 13 people.
Those southern-suburb totals, not the airport's 16.9 inches, are the real number behind the "5 to 7 feet" headlines this storm is remembered for. Both figures are accurate; they are simply measuring different places during the same event, which is exactly the airport-versus-southtowns gap this guide opened with.
How much snow fell during the December 2022 Buffalo blizzard?
The airport measured 50.3 inches from December 22 to 26, 2022, during what became known as Winter Storm Elliott. Nearby Snyder recorded 56.5 inches over the same five days. The storm killed at least 39 people in Erie County, more than the Blizzard of 1977, which had been the region's benchmark disaster for 45 years.
Does a strong El Nino mean less snow for Buffalo?
Not reliably, based on Buffalo's own record. Across the seven strong El Nino winters since 1957, Buffalo's airport total ranged from 52.4 to 124.7 inches, showing no consistent suppression the way some other Northeast cities show. El Nino shifts the region's odds broadly, not this one station's outcome.
| Winter | ONI strength | Buffalo airport total |
|---|---|---|
| 1957-58 | Strong | 124.7" |
| 1972-73 | Strong | 78.8" |
| 1982-83 | Very strong | 52.4" |
| 1991-92 | Strong | 92.8" |
| 1997-98 | Very strong | 75.6" |
| 2015-16 | Very strong | 55.1" |
| 2023-24 | Strong | 71.3" |
What does NOAA say about winter 2026-2027?
NOAA's Climate Prediction Center put the odds above 90 percent for a very strong El Nino this winter in its September 10, 2026 discussion, with a 75 percent chance of the strongest event on record since 1950. That reading beats every winter in the table above, so treat this as unprecedented, not a repeat.
Nino-3.4 sat at plus 1.8 degrees Celsius in August 2026, with the subsurface ocean running even warmer, which is what is driving the historic-strength call. None of that translates into a specific inches total for Buffalo; it describes the odds behind the season, not a forecast for any storm.
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Quick answers about snow in Buffalo this winter
Is Buffalo's airport number the same as what falls downtown or in the suburbs? No. The airport sits outside the main lake-effect band most storms use, so southern neighborhoods routinely see two to three times its total in the same event. Will this winter set a record? No seasonal outlook can say that.
- Does Buffalo get more snow than other Great Lakes cities? It is among the snowiest large US cities, but Syracuse and Erie both average more per season at their own official stations.
- What causes Buffalo's lake-effect snow specifically? Cold air moving over the relatively warm, unfrozen waters of Lake Erie, which is why the heaviest snow usually arrives before the lake freezes over in mid-winter.
- Did the November 2014 and December 2022 storms hit the same neighborhoods? Largely yes. Both events dropped their heaviest totals in the southern suburbs, though the exact towns hit hardest shifted with the wind direction each time.
- Is a strong El Nino good or bad news for Buffalo skiers and travelers? Neither, reliably. The station's own seven-winter record above shows results ranging from a near-record-low season to a well-above-normal one.
Which source should you actually trust for a Buffalo snow number?
The National Weather Service Buffalo office's own daily archive is the most complete historical record, covering every season back to 1943, though it reads as a raw table with no narrative. A site like CurrentResults presents the same NOAA-sourced averages more readably, but neither predicts this coming winter.
A tourism site's snow page or a generic forecast aggregator is the weakest source of the group: several rank for Buffalo snow queries while stating no real numbers or sources at all. Trip Traveling Guide's own take: use the NWS archive for the true historical record, a live NWS or NOHRSC forecast for anything inside a week, and treat every seasonal outlook, including this one's El Nino discussion, as a lean in the odds rather than a promised total.
The limits of this analysis
Two limits, stated plainly. Every total here is the official airport's own number, not the southern suburbs' higher ones, except where a storm's suburb figure is separately named. Using the airport number for the southtowns would understate what those neighborhoods see. The 95-inch normal is this site's own 30-season average, not an NCEI figure.
Sources
- National Weather Service, Buffalo office. Full seasonal snowfall archive, 1943 to present.
- National Weather Service, Buffalo office. November 2014 "Snowvember" storm survey.
- Wikipedia, "November 13-21, 2014 North American winter storm".
- Wikipedia, "Effects of the December 2022 North American blizzard in New York".
- NOAA Climate Prediction Center, ENSO Diagnostic Discussion, September 10, 2026.
- CurrentResults, Buffalo snowfall totals and averages.
Buffalo sits alongside 35 other cities in our nationwide look at this winter's El Nino pattern, and its neighbor to the east gets its own full breakdown in our New York winter forecast. For how reliable a seasonal snow forecast actually is by the numbers, see our guide to how accurate weather forecasts for snowfall really are, and for another Great Lakes-adjacent city's own strong-El-Nino record, see our Pittsburgh winter forecast.
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