that s exactly what we are doing as a team. we are sheltering in our hotel. we pop out every hour to show you the conditions that authorities are hoping people avoid. that s the only reason why i am able to stand on the street in downtown buffalo because we have not seen much traffic on this particular street. however, we heard from county officials earlier this morning clearly frustrated saying that it seems that people are still violating the driving and the travel ban that s in place here in the buffalo area, throughout erie county, prohibiting any nonessential, non-emergency travel. the reason being is that two-thirds, as of last check, of emergency vehicles here in erie county are still stuck in the snow and because of that there are little to no emergency services in cities like buffalo and surrounding townships as well because they can t promise if somebody suffers a medical condition in their home they will be able to get to them. so they are in the process right now of taking
minnesota, haviland, it was nearing 30 inches. my home state saw 2 feet of snow. the snow continues. but for the lucky few saying goodbye to the storm, here s the latest radar. downwind of lake michigan, still a few more inches there, that s the band we re concerned about. downwind from lakeer erie, this has moved south. 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m. that s where they re pummelled, the snow band is the direction of the wind. it was southwest and now it s westerly. it s pushed the heaviest band of snow south of buffalo metro and into the areas that have been hit so hard in the past couple of days.
snovember. that is back breaking trying to clear it out from your driveway and that is somebody s vehicle. you can imagine the weight on top of homes and businesses. that is a concern. we ve seen images of people shoveling snow from their roofs to take that weight off of their structures. we do have still some snow across michigan but i m going to focus our attention across the downward regions of lake erie and lake ontario, those are the regions that have been hit the hardest with this three-day snowstorm. the wind direction that occurred over the past 24 hours, this is a daily loop, a 24-hour loop. we did see that more southwesterly wind direction bring the heavy snow band into eastern sections of ontario, canada, but that has shifted within the past few hours to morph a westerly direction. watch how this fire hose of heavy snow moved from the north to the south and that s focused its attention on the region just south of erie county where buffalo is located. buffalo saw 5 inches of
nearly 6 1/2 feet, people, just stupendous, incredible numbers coming out of this area. words can t do it justice. we have snowshowers across the great lakes, downwind from lake michigan with you i want to focus in on what s happening downwind from lake erie and lake ontario. erie county where buffalo is located out of the lake-effect snow warning but you re upgraded to what is a winter weather advisory because of blowing snow. we had a west to south-westerly wind on saturday and that pushed that snow into eastern sections of ontario into canada and then the wind started to change direction toss more of a westerly wind and that brought that snow band south through buffalo, while it did so it brought 5 inches of fresh additional snow on top of what already fell there. watertown just downwind of lake ontario also that s an area where they were in the crosshairs for some of the heaviest rainfall snowfall i should say and some of the snowfall totals there just
square feet or so, you multiply that by four feet of snow average. that equates to nearly 50,000 pounds on top of your roof. that is like having ten suvs piled up on top of your building. that, of course, could lead to some collapse or failed roofs, and that is obviously dangerous, not to mention what s happening on the roadways. we still have over 6 million americans under these winter weather alerts, including michigan. but i m really focusing our attention downwind of lake erie and lake ontario because this is the area that has been battered for a good part of the past 48 hours. and now that heavy snow band moving directly over the downtown area of buffalo. so they re getting hit very hard right now. this is a three-hour loop, but i want to go back 24 hours because i want you to see almost that fire hose of snow that continues to oscillate north and south depending on the exact direction of the wind. that s what i was talking about,