Buffalo Bills could face high winds, heavy snow in playoff game against the Steelers

Syracuse, N.Y. -- It’s pretty clear by now that the Buffalo Bills playoff home game on Sunday against the Pittsburgh Steelers will be cold and very windy.

The wild card, so to speak, in the forecast will be whether the game gets buried in lake effect snow. The odds of that are increasing: The National Weather Service just this afternoon issued a winter storm watch for much of Western New York, including Orchard Park, where the Bills play. The watch, in effect from Saturday afternoon through Monday morning, said more than 7 inches of snow are possible over the weekend, with winds possibly reaching 60 mph.

Temperatures at kickoff are likely to be in the 20s, the National Weather Service predicts. It could feel 10 to 15 degrees colder with winds gusting up to 40 mph.

“The football might be flying without them even throwing it,” quipped Mark Wysocki, the New York state climatologist, who happens to be a Bills fan. He thinks winds could be even stronger Sunday, up to 60 mph.

That wind will whip across relatively warm and ice-free Lake Erie, funneling all that moisture toward the Buffalo area. The weather service says it’s likely the snow will start Saturday and continue into Sunday. The projected wind direction would put that snow south of Buffalo, the weather service said.

And what’s south of Buffalo? Highmark Stadium, in Orchard Park. It’s about six miles from Lake Erie, and could be in the path of those strong winds that would create narrow bands of intense snow.

“It all depends on where that band sets up,” Wysocki said. “If it goes right over Orchard Park, you could see some pretty nice whiteout conditions.”

Computer models used for forecasting aren’t particularly good at predicting the path of narrow lake effect snow bands, Wysocki said. Right now, those models are showing 3 to 5 inches of snow for Buffalo on Sunday, he said.

“If you get in one of those lake effect bands,” he said, “you could double that very easily.”

Wysocki said there’s a good chance for 6 to 12 inches of lake effect snow from Buffalo to Watertown Sunday afternoon and evening as winds blow from the southwest.

A big challenge to predicting where effect snow will fall is figuring out exactly which direction the wind will be blowing from. If the wind direction deviates 10 degrees, that could move the snow band by 10 to 20 miles. And snow bands don’t stay put; they wobble around, scattering snow like a fire hose being waved back and forth.

Buffalo won’t be the coldest spot for a playoff game this weekend. In Kansas City, where the Chiefs are playing host to the Miami Dolphins on Saturday, the wind chill at kickoff is projected to be 17 degrees below zero. That would be the coldest game the Dolphins have ever played in, CBS News said.

If the Bills win Sunday, they would play another home game the following weekend. Wysocki said it’s possible there will be another storm then, too. That storm could bring intense lake effect snowfall, and since winds would be coming down from the Hudson Bay, they could bring snow from Lake Superior and Lake Huron.

More Buffalo Bills coverage

Talk about the Bills

Be sure to check out and subscribe to “SHOUT! The Buffalo Football Podcast” with beat writers Matt Parrino and Ryan Talbot. You can also subscribe to our newsletter to get weekly updates about Bills news in your inbox. Check out the links below.