Our first snow, such as it was, arrived the beginning of this week. There's enough on the ground now to wet your toes, but that's about it. Meanwhile, an hour's drive west of us, Buffalo is digging out from close to seven feet of the stuff. That's a lot of snow, folks. Buffalo sits on the east end of Lake Erie. They got dumped on. The Lake Erie snow that made it this far east passed south of us. Here on the south shore of Lake Ontario we got almost nothing as the Lake Ontario snow load headed toward Oswego and Watertown.

Had the airflow had more of a norther component we would have seen more of the lake effect snow. Rochester has seen some severely heavy snows but not yet this year. It's rather a crap shoot. A few degrees difference in the wind direction makes a huge difference. But Buffalo always gets clobbered.

Winter is a wonderful time to be out with the camera. One needs to be dressed and shod (and, especially, hatted and gloved) for the weather and take their time getting set up, but the results are worth the effort.

Irondequoit Bay outlet on Lake Ontario. This was a chilly one. I ventured out past the shelter of the trees and quickly decided I was not dressed for the cold and wind. But I love the shot.