Lake-effect dumps up to 3ft of snow in Great Lakes region

Residents throughout the Great Lakes are braced for more snow after getting pummelled with up to 3ft feet over the US Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

The Arctic blast led the Buffalo Bills NFL team to ask fans to help shovel snow from their stadium ahead of Sunday night’s game.

Communities on the shores of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario were left blanketed in powder, snarling roads and highways on one of the country’s busiest travel weekends of the year.

More than two million residents in New York, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania were under lake effect snow warnings on Sunday morning, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

As snow piled up, the wintery weather expanded from the Northern Plains and the Midwest, bringing the coldest temperatures since last February.

From North Dakota to West Virginia, temperatures were expected to fall 10 to 15 degrees fahrenheit below average, as cold air swept over the Great Lakes.

The weather marks the season’s first lake-effect snowfall.

Common in the winter in this region of the US and Canada, lake-effect snow occurs when very cold air moves across the relatively warm water of the lakes.

These types of storms can cause large – though fairly localised – amounts of snowfall.

As much as 6ft of snow was forecast to fall in some areas by Tuesday morning.

“Heavy lake-effect snow bands and snow showers have developed downwind of the Great Lakes, and will continue into next week,” the NWS said. “Travel could be very difficult to impossible in spots.”

With heavy snowfall on Saturday and more forecast on Sunday, the Buffalo Bills put a callout to volunteers to help get Highmark Stadium ready ahead of Sunday night’s game with the San Francisco 49ers.

Videos and photos shared on social media showed blizzard-like conditions as plows pushed snow off the field and volunteers cleared it from seats and stairs. Snow is expected throughout the night in the city, and the state of New York.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency in 11 of New York’s 62 county because of the storm, and National Guard troops were dispatched in New York and Pennsylvania to assist.

The heaviest snowfall was along the Interstate 90, the NWS said, which runs around Lake Eerie from Buffalo, New York through Pennsylvania and onto Cleveland, Ohio, where communities received more than 2ft of snow.

The winter weather also caused road closures along the Interstate 90, bringing unwelcome disruption during holiday travel after US Thanksgiving on Thursday.

According to AAA, the automobile organisation, roughly 80 million people were expected to travel for Thanksgiving this year.