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Lake Effect Storms
Lake Effect Storm Types
• Wind/Shear Parallel Bands• Shore Parallel Bands
– Shore based– Midlake
• Mesoscale Vortex
Lake Superior
Lake Effect
Lake Ontario Lake Effects
Lake Michigan
Shore Parallel
Band
Lake Michigan Wind/Shear
Parallel Band
10 and 13 January, 1998
1704 UTC - 1748UTC
• Cloud rolls over water
• Spectacular Cloud streets over land
• Effect of lake shoreline
• Gravity waves perpendicular to flow
Visible Satellite
Loop
Characteristics of Wind Parallel vs. Shore Parallel Bands
Convective Boundary LayerRoll Convection
Instabilities Driving CBLOrganization
Growth of Planetary Boundary Layer Across Lake
Shore Parallel Bands– Wind blows roughly parallel to major axis of lake– Air warms from heat flux from water creating a strong
land-water air temperature contrast– Land Breeze is created forcing a land breeze front and
meso-beta scale convergence– Meso-beta scale lifting of air to as high as 4 km AGL
(compared to 1 km AGL for wind parallel bands) along land breeze front (s)
– Land breeze fronts usually combine into single convergence line
• Parallel to shoreline of lake• Pushed to downwind shoreline when winds are not completely
parallel to shoreline• Down center of lake when winds are exactly parallel to
shoreline of lake
Shore Parallel Bands• Most intense snows of all the different lake-effect
snow types, because:– Concentrates all of the absorbed moisture and heat
along a single narrow band
– Mesoscale lifting deepens the system to several kilometers allowing precipitation processes to be more efficient
• Colder than –20 C
• Deeper layer Bergeron – Findeisen Process
– Bands extend off shore and drop massive amounts of snow over small region
• Buffalo, NY (Lake Erie, WSW wind)
• Gary, Indiana (Lake Michigan, Northerly wind)
Predicting Wind Parallel Lake Effect Storms
• Lake temperature minus 850 mb temperature >13C
• Wind fetch >100 km
• Wind speed moderate to high, i.e. >10 m/s
Predicting Shore Parallel Lake Effect Storms
• Wind nearly parallel to long axis of lake
• Lake temperature minus 850 mb temperature >13C (can occur with less temperature contrast)
• Wind speed light to high, i.e. > 5 m/s