Buffalo hit with massive piles of snow in early, lake-effect storm

A ferocious storm dumped massive piles of snow on parts of upstate New York. (Andrew Collins / CTV News)

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A ferocious storm dumped massive piles of snow on parts of upstate New York, trapping residents in their homes and stranding motorists on roadways, as temperatures in all 50 states fell to freezing or below.

Even hardened Buffalo residents were caught off-guard Tuesday as more than 5 feet fell in parts of the city by early Wednesday.

The snow shifted slightly into Buffalo's northern suburbs Wednesday morning, giving the hardest hits areas a reprieve, but forecasters said a second round of lake-effect snow could deliver an additional 2 feet into Thursday.

Cold weather enveloped the entire country Tuesday, leading to record-low temperatures more familiar to January than November. Racing winds and icy roads caused accidents, school closings and delays in municipal operations from the Midwest to the South even where snowfall was low or mercifully absent.

Erie County officials said a 46-year-old man was discovered early Wednesday in his car, which was in a ditch and buried in snow in the town of Alden, 24 miles east of Buffalo. It was unclear how he died.

On Tuesday, county officials said four people had died, including three from heart attacks and one who was pinned beneath a car he was trying to free from the snow. Two of the heart attack victims were believed to be stricken while shovelling snow.

Two other deaths were reported in New Hampshire and Michigan.

"We have tried to get out of our house, and we are lucky to be able to shovel so we can open the door," said Linda Oakley of Buffalo. "We're just thinking that in case of an emergency we can at least get out the door. We can't go any further."

The snowstorm forced motorists in 150 vehicles, including a women's basketball team, to ride out the onslaught in their vehicles. They waited for hours to be freed, with some waiting more than a day. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo deployed 150 members of the National Guard to help clear snow-clogged roads and remove abandoned vehicles.

By early Wednesday, a Thruway official said most but not all passenger vehicles had been cleared.

Members of the Niagara University's women's basketball team were among the lucky ones. Stranded since 1 a.m. Tuesday, team members tweeted photos of a plow starting to clear the road. A few hours later, state troopers picked them up and brought them to a nearby police station where another bus was waiting to take them back to campus, Niagara guard Tiffany Corselli said.

"It seemed like a nightmare. It just didn't feel like it was going to end," Bryce Foreback, 23, of Shicora, Pennsylvania, told The Associated Press by cellphone 20 hours into his wait for help. "I haven't slept in like 30 hours and I'm just waiting to get out of here."

Foreback had become stuck in a long line of cars near the Lackawanna toll booths just south of Buffalo about 10:30 Monday night.

The lake-effect snow created a stark divide: In downtown Buffalo and north of the city, there was a mere dusting of precipitation, while in the south parts, snow was everywhere. The snow band that brought the snow was very much evident throughout the day as grey clouds persistently hovered over the southern part of the city. The band was so apparent, that the wall of snow could be seen from a mile away.

Amtrak passenger train service between Albany and the Buffalo area remained suspended Wednesday, and a 132-miles stretch of the Thruway and other major roadways in and out of Buffalo remained closed. Dozens of schools cancelled classes for a second day.

In a region accustomed to highway-choking snowstorms, this one is being called one of the worst in memory.

In New Hampshire and elsewhere, icy roads led to accidents. Lake-effect storms in Michigan produced gale-force winds and as much as 18 inches of snow, and cancelled several flights at the Grand Rapids airport.

Schools closed in the North Carolina mountains amid blustery winds and ice-coated roads. In Indiana, three firefighters were hurt when a semitrailer hit a fire truck on a snowy highway.

In Atlanta, tourists Morten and Annette Larsen from Copenhagen were caught off-guard by the 30-degree weather as they took photos of a monument to the 1996 summer Olympics at Centennial Olympic Park.

"It's as cold here as it is in Denmark right now. We didn't expect that," Larsen said, waving a hand over his denim jacket, buttoned tightly over a hooded sweatshirt.

Associated Press Writers Kate Brumback in Atlanta; Deepti Hajela in New York; Chris Carola and Michael Hill in Albany, New York; and Albert Stumm in Philadelphia, contributed to this report.