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Aw, poor baby is afraid of a little snow!!!! Grow a pair, dude, because out here in the snow belts of central and western New York (ie, pretty much everything from Syracuse west) we get snow measured in feet, and we drive in it. My hilly little city gets about 150 inches of snow annually. The county seat, Mayville, is up there about 200 inches. In the last five years, our school district has probably closed more often because of extremely cold temps with wind than because of snow (as we live in a city, only pre-k and handicapped kids ride are bused).
I lived in the Albany area for nearly a dozen years, and you folks out East are a bunch of wimps. Two inches of snow overnight does NOT constitute a SNOWSTORM, sweetie, NOR does six inches of snow in 24 hours constitute a "snow emergency" except in Albany and environs -- and apparently in the Mohawk Valley.
When I lived in Albany, I frequently drove back and forth between Exit 24 (Albany) and my hometown (Exit NYS Thruway at either Exit 57 or 58) in the winter. The winter conditions on the Thruway always improved once I got past Utica, which apparently was the border between the Albany Thruway maintenance district and the Syracuse district.
High horse alert, lol... I swear, when Central New Yorkers talk about their snow, it's like... yeah... congrats, that's literally all you have to boast about your region? The fact that the weather is gloomy as all hell? Other than that, it's flat and barren. I mean I know there's more there... but when they talk about their snow like it's the most amazing thing in the world, you have to wonder how boring it must get for them out there.
But I digress, lake-effect snow is not all it's hyped up to be. The outrageous snow totals for the "snow belt" exist mostly because it literally doesn't stop snowing in some places, it seems like. They go weeks without seeing the sun in the winter. They'll rack up a few inches over the course of a few days, and when you add it all up throughout the year, yeah, you get high numbers. And every once in a while, a band will sit over a particular localized area and give that spot several feet of snow in a very short period of time... but it's nothing parts of Long Island won't see at least once a year in a major Nor'easter. Lake-effect bands are so narrow, only one strip of land is getting snowed on at a time, as opposed to entire sections of the east coast that get dumped on by Nor'easters.
And while we're on that topic, the snow from lake-effect is so light and fluffy... it doesn't take much liquid-equivalent for them to accumulate a couple feet, because as it falls, there is so much air between the flakes. Eventually it will settle and then you'll get a more accurate amount. But lake-effect snow is the easiest to shovel and drive through once it has landed. The heavy, wet snow from Nor'easters is 10 times more dangerous than lake-effect snow when it lands. It makes roads a hell of a lot more slippery, and is a literal pain in the back to shovel.
Also, I just drove through a band of lake-effect snow this afternoon on the Thruway outside of Syracuse. It lasted a couple of minutes, max, and it wasn't even sticking to the ground. Oh man, so treacherous! How on earth do you do it, Miss Linda?
PS: I have lived in both the Albany area and the Syracuse area. I have had to shovel both four feet of lake-effect snow and four feet of Nor'easter snow. I would take four feet of lake-effect over Nor'easter any day... you sneeze and the snow blows away. In 2007, we got 4 feet from a bad Nor'easter in Albany. I was out there literally all day shoveling my driveway. I had to shovel it in layers, since it was so heavy, and too thick for the snow blower to plow through. THAT is why roads shut down and snow emergencies are called for Nor'easters more than lake-effect storms.
High horse alert, lol... I swear, when Central New Yorkers talk about their snow, it's like... yeah... congrats, that's literally all you have to boast about your region? The fact that the weather is gloomy as all hell? Other than that, it's flat and barren. I mean I know there's more there... but when they talk about their snow like it's the most amazing thing in the world, you have to wonder how boring it must get for them out there.
But I digress, lake-effect snow is not all it's hyped up to be. The outrageous snow totals for the "snow belt" exist mostly because it literally doesn't stop snowing in some places, it seems like. They go weeks without seeing the sun in the winter. They'll rack up a few inches over the course of a few days, and when you add it all up throughout the year, yeah, you get high numbers. And every once in a while, a band will sit over a particular localized area and give that spot several feet of snow in a very short period of time... but it's nothing parts of Long Island won't see at least once a year in a major Nor'easter. Lake-effect bands are so narrow, only one strip of land is getting snowed on at a time, as opposed to entire sections of the east coast that get dumped on by Nor'easters.
And while we're on that topic, the snow from lake-effect is so light and fluffy... it doesn't take much liquid-equivalent for them to accumulate a couple feet, because as it falls, there is so much air between the flakes. Eventually it will settle and then you'll get a more accurate amount. But lake-effect snow is the easiest to shovel and drive through once it has landed. The heavy, wet snow from Nor'easters is 10 times more dangerous than lake-effect snow when it lands. It makes roads a hell of a lot more slippery, and is a literal pain in the back to shovel.
Also, I just drove through a band of lake-effect snow this afternoon on the Thruway outside of Syracuse. It lasted a couple of minutes, max, and it wasn't even sticking to the ground. Oh man, so treacherous! How on earth do you do it, Miss Linda?
PS: I have lived in both the Albany area and the Syracuse area. I have had to shovel both four feet of lake-effect snow and four feet of Nor'easter snow. I would take four feet of lake-effect over Nor'easter any day... you sneeze and the snow blows away. In 2007, we got 4 feet from a bad Nor'easter in Albany. I was out there literally all day shoveling my driveway. I had to shovel it in layers, since it was so heavy, and too thick for the snow blower to plow through. THAT is why roads shut down and snow emergencies are called for Nor'easters more than lake-effect storms.
I think her point was that snow is no big deal. She's from WNY, by the way.
Also, I don't think I would call CNY barren and definitely not flat, unless you are talking about area going north of Syracuse.
I drive 7 days a week in my car on Long Island and average 1.500 miles a year last 15 years. Driving to and from train and dry cleaners etc. is not much miles.
I usually take a plane when I go on vacation and take a cab to the airport. When I go out in Manhattan or even a football game I often take train as I have a monthly pass and DWI, Tolls, Gas and Parking is expensive.
The major reasons for NY's low per capita driving miles are that primarily so many New Yorkers live/work in the NYC metro where mass transit is probably the best way to get around (and that's no surprise), and that secondarily the built environment in Upstate contributes to those lower mileage:
Much of Upstate NY is much more densely populated than many other areas of the country. You don't realize that until you realize how many small cities and villages there are out in what's supposed to be "rural areas". Dunkirk, Jamestown, Olean, Hornell, Bath, Elmira, Corning, Ithaca, Binghamton, Auburn, Geneva, Canandaigua,etc all provide some "critical mass" of jobs and commerce for some of the state's otherwise thinly populated areas. In many other states, there simply aren't nearly as many of these small cities/overgrown villages, so people have to travel a lot further for jobs and services.
Because cities like Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Albany were largely built up before WW II (essentially 1920s), lots tended to be smaller, homes tended to be smaller (or house two families), and built on grids rather than cul-de-sacs. Many of the early post-WW II suburbs followed these same trends, creating fairly dense suburbs.
Upstate population has either been stagnant or falling over the last 40 years which has limited increases in real estate prices and has enabled most of Upstate to avoid real estate bubbles. Consequently, most people who have decent paying jobs in the large and small cities can afford to buy homes either in their cities or in nearby suburbs. They don't have to buy homes 35-40 miles from their jobs just to get an affordable home, which is not the case for most workers in Boston, Philly, Washington, DC, San Francisco, Las Vegas, etc. This results in second and third ring suburbs that are much more compact than in many other metros, and the third ring suburbs are much more likely to be filled with upscale McMansions rather than starter homes.
Even in the Hudson Valley area where many people who work in NYC do "drive until they can afford to buy", there's rapid rail and bus commuter service.
The strict code enforcement in most suburban NYS towns also means that even modest homes in first ring suburbs don't turn into slums, and can become desirable neighborhoods for both families and empty-nesters. The Buffalo suburb of Tonawanda and the Albany suburb of Colonie are two examples of this.
Since most first and second ring suburbs in Upstate were built with commercial (and sometimes industrial) areas, shopping areas have always been near at hand even for suburban shoppers. In the Buffalo area, Sheridan Drive and Niagara Falls Blvd in Tonawanda/Amherst, remain major commercial areas while Albany's Wolf Road is one of the major shopping areas in the Capital District. Syracuse has the Carousel Mall with is also fairly close in to the city.
What you don't see much of in Upstate areas generally are miles upon miles of residential subdivisions with no commercial areas. Even many 2nd and 3rd ring suburbs have town centers because many cluster around what were once small villages. Think of Lockport, East Aurora, and Hamburg in WNY or Delmar near Albany.
What this all means is that even people who live in suburban and even exurban areas tend to be much closer to work and shopping than many other people in other states.
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