As I drove home from work on Thursday, big, wet snowflakes were coming down, accompanied every few minutes by flashes of lightning and the loud crack of thunder. It was unusual weather at this time of year, even for Buffalo, but it didn’t seem extraordinary. Little did I realize that over the next twelve hours about two feet of heavy, wet snow would fall on our area, bringing down tree limbs and knocking out electricity to several hundred thousand homes. (more…)