Everyone remembers the weather fourteen years ago. Every remembrance story, every “where were you when” conversation, every newscast before the attacks mentions how the sky was a brilliant, deep shade of blue the morning the world turned upside down. However, had the sky not been as clear as it was that day—if the hurricane off the coast of New England hadn’t ricocheted toward Canada—it’s very possible that the weather could have permanently changed the course of both American and world history.

If you woke up this fine Tuesday morning to find much less snow than forecasters predicted, you're likely one of the thousands of angry people sprinting to the computer to voice your outrage—outrage!!!—that those lowlife, idiotic, goodfernothin' meteorologists can't get anything right. Here's why you're wrong.

A nasty lake effect snow event is cranking up over western New York this afternoon, threatening to dump several feet of snow on communities from Buffalo to Watertown. Towns south of Buffalo could dig out from three feet of snow from the system, while eastern Lake Ontario could see up to five feet of snow in 36 hours.

Contrasting with Florida Man's terrible luck, a New York man is incredibly fortunate this afternoon after falling sixty feet into a gorge in Letchworth State Park on Sunday evening. When crew rescued him a few hours later, they discovered that he didn't have a scratch on him.

While making boneheaded comments about forecasts leading up to Buffalo's seven feet of snow last week, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo mentioned that the state is developing a "weather detection system" that would have improved the city's snow forecasts. Here's why he's (mostly) wrong.

Four months ago, Andrew Cuomo falsely stated that New York just recently started seeing tornadoes. On Saturday, the governor gave a press conference where he slammed meteorologists for their largely accurate Buffalo snow forecasts. As usual, Andrew Cuomo is clueless.

Cities to the south and east of Buffalo are digging out from up to 88 inches of snow this morning after this week's double lake effect snow events. To make matters worse, warm temperatures and potentially heavy rain will cause a rapid snowmelt, bringing the potential for major flooding.

More than five feet of snow is on the ground near Buffalo, New York, and a few more feet could fall by Thursday night. Some communities could see up to eight feet of snow by the time the storm is done. Governor Cuomo has called in the National Guard to dig out the buried region.

The above photo, taken from a plane above Buffalo yesterday by photographer Jeff Suhr, shows the brutal lake effect snow storm in effect over Western New York right now. Some areas are expecting up to six feet of snow by the end of the week. These snowstorms are among the most intense in the world, and the processes that create them are pretty spectacular.

NBC Connecticut meteorologist Ryan Hanrahan has a great piece on his site about the NWS failing to issue a tornado warning for an EF-1 tornado in New York last week. This is a good reminder that about 3 in 10 tornadoes occur without warning.

If you thought yesterday's heavy rain was bad, wait until you see this: Islip, New York recorded more than 13 inches of rain this morning, 11 inches of which fell in just three hours. That breaks the all-time New York State record for the most rain recorded in a 24-hour period.

After touring damage in central New York left behind by yesterday's strong tornado that killed four people, Governor Andrew Cuomo said "We don't get tornadoes in New York, right? Anyone will tell you that. Well, we do now." Except he's wrong. Really wrong. Really, really wrong.

A moderate (4 out of 5) risk for severe weather exists across parts of Pennsylvania and New York this afternoon ahead of thunderstorms that could produce widespread damaging winds in excess of 75 MPH at times. In addition to the wind risk, hail the size of ping pong balls and even a tornado or two are possible.