Philly finally gets a freeze — and Buffalo area up to 6 feet of snow — as winter chill settles on the East

As it did in Philly and throughout the East, November got off to a remarkably warm start in western New York, and perhaps no one knows better than Buffalo’s Mike Fries that his city is about to pay a deep price for that springlike interlude.

The National Weather Service is calling for snow into the weekend up that way, with accumulations of 3 to 6 — feet, that is — in and around Buffalo as frigid winds blow across the November-warmed waters of Lake Erie.

» READ MORE: Dangerous lake-effect snowstorm blankets Buffalo, western N.Y.

By early Friday afternoon, 4 feet had been measured just to the south of the city — with an additional 2 feet possible through Saturday night — and 3½ feet measured in Orchard Park, where the Buffalo Bills are scheduled to host the Cleveland Browns Sunday afternoon in an NFL game.

For Fries, who is the warning coordination meteorologist at the agency’s Buffalo office, this is a matter of some personal interest: The upper end of the forecast totals could well land upon his neighborhood.

While not a flake of that is coming this way — even though this does happen to be “Snow Squall Awareness Week” in Pennsylvania — at long last the temperature did drop to 32 degrees, even at the freeze-resistant Philadelphia International Airport.

The expected Lake Erie snow frenzy would be incited by the same icy air mass, driven eastward by strong high pressure from Alaska to northwestern Canada, that has been chilling Philly this week.

On Tuesday morning, temperatures dropped into the 20s outside the city, and to freezing or well below just about everywhere else away from the immediate coast.

» READ MORE: Forecasters confident that winter will be mild

The notable exception was the official National Weather Service station at the airport, where it stopped at 33. That thermometer, near a river and swamp and in the proximity of airport buildings and runways, is a notorious outlier.

Despite the airport’s resistance, the weather service declared an official end to the “growing season” everywhere in the region, deeming that most of Philadelphia has experienced freezing temperatures.

» READ MORE: In Philly winters expect anything

Temperatures are du to fall into the upper 20s on Saturday and Sunday morning, making for some cold toes among those participating in the Philly Marathon.

» READ MORE: All about the Philadelphia Marathon weekend

Monday and Tuesday marked a significant change in Philadelphia’s weather fortunes, being the first two days with below-normal temperatures in a month that saw the warmest Nov. 1-7 period on record.

Similarly, Buffalo set three high-temperature records that week, hitting 79 on Nov. 4, but on Wednesday experienced its fourth consecutive day of below average readings. The long-range forecasts favor continued cold at least through Thanksgiving throughout the Northeast.

It’s “a complete pattern flip,” said Cameron Wunderlin at the weather service in Mount Holly.

Unfortunately for Buffalo residents who aren’t fond of shoveling snow, the cold has arrived too late to chill the waters.

The Lake Erie water temperature at Buffalo on Tuesday was 53, even warmer than it was the beginning of the month, said Fries.

When the cold air, interacting with a storm system, clashes with the warm air overlying the lake water, it is forced upward and condenses into snow. West-southwest winds will drive it toward the Buffalo area along corridors of profoundly heavy snow, forecasters say.

Areas caught in a stationary snow band could get up to 4 feet of snow from Thursday into early Saturday, the weather service warns.

Typically, the winds drive the snows just to the south of the city, said Fries, “but probably not this time.”