The adult man, a woman and three children had been swimming off Longview Avenue near a boat as the storm came in, according to Chautauqua County Sheriff James Quattrone.

“The storm came on rapidly and the male subject was unable to get back to the boat,” Quattrone added, noting that the other four subjects, as well as a dog, were located.

Several agencies set up a command center with dive team members on Chautauqua Avenue after the man was reported missing with Lakewood, Bemus Point and Panama volunteer firefighters assisting as well as the New York State Police. Several search and rescue boats could be seen throughout the Ashville Bay and Cheney’s Point areas.

Dive teams remained on the water past 5 p.m. but severe weather moving into the area forced the search to be called off until morning.

Several agencies engaged in a wide search of Chautauqua Lake Sunday afternoon for a man who went missing amid a storm. P-J photo by Cameron Hurst

Warren, Pa. resident Greg Payne –a Jamestown native who has been boating on Chautauqua Lake for 33 years –was anchored in Bemus Bay with friends in front of The Fish restaurant as ominous storm clouds began to appear.

“We could see the storm coming from Mayville up north on the lake and you could see it getting darker,” Payne said, noting that he and his group had been on the lake since 11 a.m. “My fiancee started taking pictures and you could see a white line and just dark below the clouds and then clear on top. The wind started to pick up and it got pretty choppy.”

Payne called Sunday’s storm the “third worst storm” he had seen on the lake.

“Even with a heavy, 26-foot cruiser, which weighs 4,600 pounds, it still tossed me around the lake pretty good,” he said, noting that his boat is stored at Holiday Harbor in Celoron.

“We had to travel the full length of the lake. As soon as we crossed the (Veterans Memorial Bridge), we were ahead of it and we could still see it coming in.

Agencies set up a post on Cheney’s Point in Ashville searching for a man who went missing on Chautauqua Lake Sunday afternoon. P-J Photo by Cameron Hurst

“Coming down the lake, there was a cross wind out of the west, but you had white caps and probably two to three foot swells that were hitting the boat that made me fish tail and we had to straighten the boat up … But, it was pretty hard to control my boat.”

In the north county, the Dunkirk Fire Department and the Coast Guard were looking for a kayaker on Lake Erie around 1 p.m. this afternoon prior to the storm. The kayaker was believed to have returned to land.

Eric Tichy and John D’Agostino contributed to this story.