How much does snow reduce solar production in Erie County?

Less than most people expect. A pitched array here sees roughly 20 to 45 days a season with enough cover to stop production — the glass is slick and the array runs warmer than the shingles around it. Cloud cover through November and December costs more production than snow cover does. What snow really drives is the structural spec: design ground snow load here is 40 to 50 psf, and racking must be engineered and stamped for it.

Is Erie County too far north or too cloudy for solar?

No, but the honest framing is that the climate sets the ceiling and the electricity rate sets the value. A 10 kW array here produces roughly 11,500 kWh a year. That is real output — the question is what a kWh is worth where you live, which is a rate question rather than a weather one.

How does lake-effect snow affect solar in Erie County?

Heavy exposure from Lake Erie. Lake Erie freezes most winters, usually in January or early February. Once it does, lake-effect snow largely stops. That is why February and March here often outproduce December by a wide margin.

Does cold weather help or hurt solar panels in Erie County?

Cold helps efficiency — panels produce more per unit of sunlight at low temperature, which is why a clear February day can outperform a hazy July one on a per-hour basis. What hurts is daylight hours and cloud cover, and this climate is short on both between November and February. The two effects do not cancel out; the daylight loss dominates.

Western New York · Lake Erie Plain

Erie County weather and solar

What the climate here actually does to a solar array — production by season, the structural spec the snow load forces, and the roof decisions that follow from both.

The climate

Lake Erie Plain

The flat shelf running from Buffalo south along the lakeshore. Lake Erie is shallow, so it stays warm into December and dumps hard, then freezes over and shuts the snow machine off. That seasonality is the defining fact for solar here: your worst production months are November through January, and by February the lake is usually done.

Specific yield

1,080–1,220 kWh / kW-DC / yr

A 10 kW array averages about 11,500 kWh a year here.

Modeled NREL PVWatts v8 · verified Jan 2026South-facing, low shade. A due-east or due-west roof lands 15-20% below the low end of this band.

Mean annual snowfall

75–110 inches

Heavy lake-effect exposure from Lake Erie.

Modeled NOAA/NWS seasonal snowfall records · verified Jan 2026Buffalo's long-term mean is roughly 95 inches. Individual seasons swing from 40 to 200 depending on where the bands set up.

Design ground snow load

40–50 psf

Racking and structural review are engineered to this figure. Ask which number your proposal used.

Filed ASCE 7 ground snow load data · verified Jan 2026Racking and structural review must be designed to this. It is why a Buffalo roof mount costs more per watt than the same array in Albany.

Winter quarter share

11% of annual

December, January, and February combined.

Derived NREL PVWatts v8 · verified Jan 2026December, January, and February combined, as a share of annual output. Roughly one month's worth of production spread across three months.

Days with snow on the array

20–45 per season

Far fewer than days with snow on the ground — panels shed.

Observed GridReady quote and bill review sample · verified Jan 2026Days per season with enough snow on a pitched array to stop production. Panels shed faster than roofs — glass is slick and the array runs warmer than the shingles around it.

Seasonality

Production month by month on a 10 kW array

Jul outproduces Dec by roughly 3.9 to one here. This is the shape a real proposal should show you — if yours is a gentle wave, it is not modeling Erie County.

405

Jan

481

Feb

830

Mar

1,162

Apr

1,383

May

1,438

Jun

1,494

Jul

1,383

Aug

1,162

Sep

885

Oct

498

Nov

380

Dec

kWh per month from a 10 kW-DC array at the midpoint of the Lake Erie Plain yield band. Bar height is relative to the peak month.

Show the arithmetic

10 kW × 1,150 kWh/kW/yr (midpoint of the Lake Erie Plain band) = 11,500 kWh a year, distributed on a northern-temperate seasonal curve anchored so December through February sums to 11% of the total.

A modeled shape, not a measurement of your roof. Orientation, pitch, and shading move individual months more than they move the annual total.

Derived NREL PVWatts v8 · verified Jan 2026December, January, and February combined, as a share of annual output. Roughly one month's worth of production spread across three months.

Local weather

What the weather here specifically does

Lake Erie freezes most winters, usually in January or early February. Once it does, lake-effect snow largely stops. That is why February and March here often outproduce December by a wide margin.
The heaviest bands set up south of the city, which is why Hamburg and Orchard Park routinely get double what the airport records while downtown gets rain.
Cloud cover, not snow cover, is the bigger production loss. November and December here are among the cloudiest months of any populated place in the country.
Spring and early summer are genuinely good. May through August often runs within a few percent of the same array in Philadelphia.

The roof

Consequences for the array itself

A 40-50 psf ground snow load means racking has to be spec'd and stamped for it. If a quote does not name the snow load it was engineered to, ask.
Snow guards below an array are worth discussing if the array sheds onto a walkway, a driveway, or a gas meter. Sliding snow off a slick panel field is more dangerous than off shingles.
Low-pitch roofs hold snow longer. On a 3:12 or shallower roof, expect meaningfully more snow-cover days than the band above.
Ice damming at the eave is a pre-existing roof problem that solar does not cause and does not fix. Fix it before you cover the roof.

The one question worth asking every installer here

“What ground snow load is this racking engineered for, and can I see the stamped calculation?” The right answer in Erie County is 40–50 psf. A proposal that cannot answer has not been engineered for this roof.

Microclimates

Erie County is not one climate

County averages hide real variation. These are the other zones inside this county's boundary.

Elevation and distance from a lake move these numbers more than county boundaries do.
Zone	Snowfall	Snow load	Specific yield
Lake Erie Plain (primary)	75–110"	40–50 psf	1,080–1,220 kWh/kW
Niagara Frontier	70–100"	40–50 psf	1,090–1,230 kWh/kW
Southern Tier Hills	70–120"	50–70 psf	1,050–1,170 kWh/kW
Chautauqua Ridge / Southwest Snow Belt	110–190"	60–100 psf	1,020–1,160 kWh/kW

By location

Elevation across Erie County

Within a single county, elevation is usually the strongest predictor of how much snow a roof sees.

Place	Elevation	Climate zone	Guide
Springville	1,350 ft	Chautauqua Ridge / Southwest Snow Belt	Costs & production
East Aurora	900 ft	Lake Erie Plain	Costs & production
Orchard Park	875 ft	Lake Erie Plain	Costs & production
Elma	800 ft	Lake Erie Plain	Costs & production
Hamburg	750 ft	Lake Erie Plain	Costs & production
Lancaster	700 ft	Lake Erie Plain	Costs & production
Clarence	700 ft	Lake Erie Plain	Costs & production
Alden	700 ft	Lake Erie Plain	Costs & production
Eden	700 ft	Lake Erie Plain	Costs & production
Akron	700 ft	Niagara Frontier	Costs & production
West Seneca	675 ft	Lake Erie Plain	Costs & production
Depew	675 ft	Lake Erie Plain	Costs & production
Cheektowaga	650 ft	Lake Erie Plain	Costs & production
Amherst	625 ft	Lake Erie Plain	Costs & production
Williamsville	625 ft	Lake Erie Plain	Costs & production
Buffalo	600 ft	Lake Erie Plain	Costs & production
Lackawanna	600 ft	Lake Erie Plain	Costs & production
Evans	600 ft	Lake Erie Plain	Costs & production
Kenmore	600 ft	Niagara Frontier	Costs & production
Tonawanda	590 ft	Niagara Frontier	Costs & production
Grand Island	585 ft	Niagara Frontier	Costs & production

Questions

Erie County climate FAQ

How much does snow reduce solar production in Erie County?: Less than most people expect. A pitched array here sees roughly 20 to 45 days a season with enough cover to stop production — the glass is slick and the array runs warmer than the shingles around it. Cloud cover through November and December costs more production than snow cover does. What snow really drives is the structural spec: design ground snow load here is 40 to 50 psf, and racking must be engineered and stamped for it.
What is the seasonal production curve in Erie County?: Jul is the strongest month and Dec the weakest, by roughly 3.9 to one. December through February combined account for about 11% of annual output — roughly one month's worth of production spread across three months. A proposal that shows a smooth, near-flat monthly production curve for this county is not modeling this climate.
Is Erie County too far north or too cloudy for solar?: No, but the honest framing is that the climate sets the ceiling and the electricity rate sets the value. A 10 kW array here produces roughly 11,500 kWh a year. That is real output — the question is what a kWh is worth where you live, which is a rate question rather than a weather one.
How does lake-effect snow affect solar in Erie County?: Heavy exposure from Lake Erie. Lake Erie freezes most winters, usually in January or early February. Once it does, lake-effect snow largely stops. That is why February and March here often outproduce December by a wide margin.
Does cold weather help or hurt solar panels in Erie County?: Cold helps efficiency — panels produce more per unit of sunlight at low temperature, which is why a clear February day can outperform a hazy July one on a per-hour basis. What hurts is daylight hours and cloud cover, and this climate is short on both between November and February. The two effects do not cancel out; the daylight loss dominates.

Next step

Turn this into your own numbers

The climate sets what a roof can produce. Your rate sets what that production is worth, and your roof sets how much of the band you actually get.

Badge key:Filed — from a tariff, statute, or government datasetModeled — from a published model or datasetDerived — calculated by us from the inputs shownObserved — from proposals and bills readers send us

How this page is built

This is a generated page: the structure is shared across locations, the numbers are not. Every figure comes from the source cited beside it, with the date we last checked it. Nothing here is a quote, an appraisal, or tax advice, and none of it is specific to your roof.

Rates and incentive programs change. We re-verify utility tariffs and NYSERDA program status on a rolling schedule and stamp the date on each number rather than on the page, so you can see which specific figures are fresh. Full methodology · Program status tracker · About the Local Energy Playbook

Page content last reviewed April 2026.

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