{"id":73749,"date":"2025-12-30T14:27:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T14:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/73749\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T14:27:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T14:27:18","slug":"extreme-winds-cause-nearly-30ft-waves-on-lake-erie-exposing-the-bed-and-blowing-water-into-buffalo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/73749\/","title":{"rendered":"Extreme winds cause nearly 30ft waves on Lake Erie, exposing the bed and blowing water into Buffalo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Extreme winds have caused Lake Erie<\/a> to drain at one end and flood parts of Buffalo at the other, in what meteorologists<\/a> describe as a seiche.<\/p>\n

On Monday, winds from the southwest towards Buffalo<\/a> were 35 to 45 mph, with gusts up to 75 mph.<\/p>\n

The wind’s direction and strength caused a seiche, which occurs when wind pressure pushes water in one direction, exposing the lakebed on one side and flooding the other.<\/p>\n

Fox8<\/a> meteorologist Scott Sabol said the weather was largely due to strong winds and atmospheric pressure.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like sloshing the water in your bathtub,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe water will go from the west of the lake to the east part of the lake and will drastically change the height of the lake over a short period of time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe levels then return to normal after the winds die down.\u201d<\/p>\n

About 12.30 pm on Monday, Lake Erie rose more than six feet in Buffalo from 4.30 am. At the other end of the lake, in Toledo, levels were down around 13 feet.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The storm hitting Lake Erie (nys_dot\/Instagram)<\/p>\n

National Weather Service meteorologist Tom Niziol posted on X that the wind-driven seiche was causing significant differences in the lake\u2019s water levels.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is nearly an 8 foot difference now between the water level at Buffalo and Toledo, along the 225 mile stretch of Lake Erie,\u201d Niziol posted.<\/p>\n

The National Weather Service issued a high wind warning for Monday and Tuesday, warning that winds could down trees and power lines. It also issued a lakeshore flood warning due to extreme winds.<\/p>\n

Niziol posted footage of wind-driven waves pushing lake water onto the shoreline as two people walk, barely able to move forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn all my years living up here in Buffalo, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever seen it this bad along the Lakeshore,\u201d he posted.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had three hours of 80+ mph gusts here and with the temperature dropping, very heavy freezing spray is accumulating on all of the trees. Lots of damage.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Extreme winds have caused Lake Erie to drain at one end and flood parts of Buffalo at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[1611,136,138,137,38234,260,13714,38233,2867,5598],"class_list":{"0":"post-73749","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-erie","8":"tag-buffalo","9":"tag-erie","10":"tag-erie-headlines","11":"tag-erie-news","12":"tag-extreme-winds","13":"tag-lake-erie","14":"tag-strong-winds","15":"tag-tom-niziol","16":"tag-water","17":"tag-water-levels"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}