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Upstate NY Babies
beachgirl1977
member
joining you in less than 2 weeks!! Be honest about winter please!!
beachgirl1977
member
we are moving to Rochester in about 2 weeks and I'm starting to get really nervous! what do you love about the area and tell me about winters.
How much snow can I really expect.. where I come from people get excited about 3-4 inches and buy all the bread and tp from the stores. It takes a few days to get the streets cleaned
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Re: joining you in less than 2 weeks!! Be honest about winter please!!
Welcome! I'm in Rochester too. Where are you coming from? When I went to college in PA, it was in a valley that the winters were mild. But this meant that the few storms that they did have, it took forever for the town to dig out. And the drivers were awful. For the most part, the main roads are kept well salted and cleared. The small neighborhood roads take a bit longer - but not days usually! It seems like the first storm of each winter you hear about a lot of accidents, but then people remember how to drive in the snow and do better. Just give yourself extra time to get places and you'll be ok. Will you guys be in a house or appt? One thing we were stupid about was when we bought our house, we didn't go out to buy a snow blower until the first storm. Definitely smart to get one ahead of time unless you just have someone plow for the season.
I love that we have all 4 seasons! You will catch some of fall too which is pretty. Right now, we have been having really nice weather for this time.
My DH is not from here (CA and then VA originally) and told me his first winter here he couldn't wait to get snowed in. Then we were snowed in and he was pretty over it!
Some winters are worse with snow than others and I don't remember last winter being bad other than about 3 bigger storms we had. By February though you'll start to go a little stir-crazy so look at finding some good indoor activities.
And as JNK said, if you moved into your own house buy a snowblower or look into getting a snowplow contract put in place early!
Good luck!
Welcome! Upstate NY has the equipment and resources to move the snow. Even if we do get a big storm (talking feet not inches) it's usually only a couple of days, at most, until everyone is up and moving again. If you live up by one of the lakes you can expect more snow than if you don't.
I tend to see people freak out at the first big snowstorm, but not to a point where they are buying 5 gallons of milk. But after a couple of months, people take it more in stride here. I remember being in VA when they got 2 inches of snow. The city was shut down and I just remember thinking WTH?. But they didn't have salt, snow plows or anything to move the snow so it quickly made sense why they shut the city down.
Along with the snowblower/plow service, I'd suggest that you have a good pair of all season or winter snow tires put on your vehicles. They are both great investments.
Good luck!
TTC since 6/2003. m/c 9/14/03 8 weeks, 5 chemical pregnancies, mmc 6/04 12 weeks, Michael born sleeping 5/25/05 at 22weeks always our angel, fought ovarian cancer and won, m/c 4/06 5.2 weeks and 7/07 6.6 weeks,Our Miracle baby girl born 4/8/10,mc 12/18/11 at 5.3 weeks, BFP 10/26/12 dating u/s on 11/8/12 showing a strong heartbeat!EDD July 4,2013. RCS on 6/27. Baby boy in NICU for 8 long and scary days before he was able to come home. We are now a happy family of 4
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Welcome! and I agree with the statement above. All season or snow tires are a great investment! Another tip, if we do get a big storm snowblow that night, so there isn't so much in the morning. I know that seems simple, but we had a friend move here from the south, and one day he complained to DH about how his snowblow kept crapping out because the snow was so deep. He didn't think to snowblow before he went to bed when we only had a foot. haha!
honestly, IMO winter is not a big deal.
i have not had a snow day (no work because of snow/ice) since october 2006- the infamous october suprise freak storm.
the national media paints a terrible picture of what the weather is really like, additionally the local media tends to sensationalize things for the sake of grabbing your attention and the meteorlogists are never right.
i did a little research:
https://www.city-data.com/top2/c464.html
has Buffalo ranked at #9 and Rochester at #11 of the top 101 cities (though it didn't give a year for the ranking but they seem about right)
here https://www.buffaloresearch.com/snow.html
they have Rochester ahead of Buffalo- but i imagine the difference would be lake effect, there is also some good info on Buffalo weather there.
here https://www.erh.noaa.gov/er/buf/lakeffect/snowseason.html
you can see that lake effect does factor in in the amounts of snow and where it falls
and the lakes are different. Ontario is deeper and i believe that it takes longer to freeze over then Erie which explains in part why east of Ontario get's more snow
i know most people don't like cold and snow- but the longer it stays warmer the more snow we get. once the lakes freeze over there is no chance of lake effect snow which tend to make up the larger accumulations.
we also usually see a trend of snow then warming/melting, snow then warming/melting. there might be a few weeks of bitter cold weather but they don't last long.