Quite a few people, over quite a few years, have taken note of the fact that if you’re driving I-86, between Campbell and Savona, you often run into a band of rain, snow, or sleet. There’s something similar going on above Prattsburgh, on the height overlooking the village from the north, along State Route 53. You’ll also find it along I-390, on the height between Dansville and Cohocton.

WHY this should be the case, or even whether they result from the same phenomena, is more than I can tell you. But I take it that they reveal microclimates – small pockets where the climate (and thus the weather) differs from its surroundings. It may differ by only a tiny amount, but it’s enough to make noticeable results.

You’ve already noticed this, on a small and transitory scale, whenever you’ve stepped into the shade to escape the blast of the sun’s direct rays. Not that this has been a problem LATELY!

You’ve also seen it when you lift your eyes unto the hills, and see that they’re covered with snow, while there’s none where you’re standing.

Altitude can make quite noticeable changes, as you can learn if you’re in Bath on a hot summer’s day. Drive on up to Mossy Bank Park, overlooking the village, and you’ll instantly be MUCH more comfortable.

We aren’t the only ones to recognize this. We know that many birds migrate northwrad in summer, and southward for winter. Juncos migrate UPWARD for summer and DOWNWARD for winter. When the snow flies, we enjoy them at our feeders. We meet them again in summer at Mossy Bank Park, or in the gorge of Watkins Glen State Park. Just a few feet of elevation, and a little cover, are all that they need. The climate’s a few degrees cooler, and they’re perfectly happy.

Watkins Glen is so narrow that it blocks out most of the sunshine, meaning that the ice and snow sometimes lie on the trail for weeks after it’s a memory elsewhere, keeping the gorge closed to frustrated hikers and tourists.

In some seasons Letchworth Gorge also preserves ice for a long time, while it can lie under Niagara Falls until midsummer.

As western New Yorkers we’re aware of microclimates that create “lake effect snow.” But I’ve noticed that Steuben County seems to be in an odd little trough that frees it from most of these proverbial snowfalls. Lake Erie lake effect seems to peter out around Hornell. Lake Ontario lake effect gives up the ghost around Canandiagua, or at least around Ingleside. And coastal storms rarely dump much west of Elmira.

We live in Bath village, and drive maybe a quarter-mile to work. We often drive INTO a thick fog bank, as we approach the Conhocton River. Folks in Cameron Mills and elsewhere get similar narrow morning fog bands lining the Canisteo.

And this persists after those rivers flow together to form the Chemung… as you’ve bitterly realized whenever you’ve tried to take an early morning flight out of Corning-Elmira Airport, near Big Flats.

You can thank microclimates for our grape and wine industry. On the eastward-facing slopes (the west side, in other words) of the Finger Lakes, we get a warming effect from the combination of the sun’s rays and the lakes’ heat sink. It’s just warm enough to preserve the vines, and just cold enough to kill the pests, et voila! But I imagine, unfortunately, that global warming will open up that narrow window, and pretty well put us out of business.