INTRODUCTION
The winter season can be a major hassle for some people while others just have to deal with a slight cool down in temperatures. Over the northern portions of the country, people are faced to deal with the harsh conditions that Mother Nature has in store. Some winter seasons are less brutal than others. Besides the typical storm systems that come through the area and drop different types of precipitation whether it is snow, sleet, or freezing rain, there’s another weather event that affects not everyone in the country, but primarily around the Great Lakes. Lake effect snow is a very interesting mesoscale convective phenomenon that occurs mostly during the heart of the winter season and adds greatly to the annual snowfall that areas
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A study was done to understand the effects of thundersnow within lake effect snow events which took place between 1995 through 2007. What the study observed was that the majority of cloud to ground lightning occurred in lake effect storms during the late fall and early winter months. Twenty-seven percent of storms however occurred between the January through March period. BUFKIT was used in this study to determine the environment that would be required for lightning to occur in these storms. “The presence of the layer from -10 to -25 C within the predicted lake-effect cloud layer (lake-induced LCL to EL analyzed within BUFKIT) appears to be necessary, but not sufficient, condition for CG lightning to occur; values over 500 J/kg of lake induced CAPE much also be present for CG lightning initiation.” (Vol 48, 900). Another requirement of necessary conditions for lighting to occur is that greater heights of the -10 isotherms that are greater than a kilometer above ground level are “also conductive to lake effect lightning because this condition allows more graupel to form in the warmer cloud.” (Vol 48 900). Having a higher equilibrium level greater than 3.6km will allow greater cloud depth to develop convection. Minimal wind shear and more signalized snow bands instead of multiple bands will enhance the …show more content…
While model grid spacing’s were becoming less sporadic going form 15-20 to 38 grid points over the great lakes, the model resolution was still not sufficient enough to pick up on this type of event. Forecasters wanted a high resolution mesoscale model but the model is only as good as the data that is incorporated into it. There needed to be vastly improved data and they “called for a high resolution (temporal and spatial) observational network that included automatic weather stations able to report surface temperature, pressure, and precipitation in real time; wind profilers able to estimate wind speed and direction at various levels; and a new Doppler radar system that could locate snow bands 100 kilometers away.”
Appears in Preprints, 18 th AMS Conf. Severe Local Storms (San Francisco, CA), 19-23 February 1996, Amer. Meteor. Soc., 471-473. Typos and other minor problems have been fixed in this Web version.
’[16] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Guterson, David, Snow Falling on Cedars, 1994, pp 367. [2] Ibid. , pp. 107.
Lake-Effect snow has a range of different intensities depending upon certain factors. The difference between the air temperature and the water temperature will determine how much moisture is taken into the air. Warmer water and colder air makes for more snow. Also the distance the air has to travel across the lake will determine how much moisture the air is able to obtain. The ability of the storm to travel inland will be determined by the intensity of the storm’s winds. Storms also are able travel farther inland in late fall and early winter.
Lassen Peak has the highest known winter snowfall amounts in California. There is an average annual snowfall of 660 in, and in some years, more than 1,000 inches of snowfall at its base altitude of 8,250 feet at Lake Helen.
On the afternoon of Monday May 3, two air masses met over central Oklahoma. One of the air masses was warm, moist air traveling north from the Gulf of Mexico. The other was cold dry air moving west across the plains from the Rocky Mountains. This collision of air
First, Collins uses hyperbole by repeating the word “snow” five times in one sentence: “Chicago’s snowfall was so huge that the news media ran out of things to attach to “snow” - thundersnow! snowpocalypse! snowmageddon!” (Collins). She consecutively uses three portmanteaus of the word "snow" with increasing stress level to create strong feelings. She wants to emphasize that Chicago is experiencing the most massive snowstorm in the United States, one of the consequences of global warming. This is a circumstance that causes people panic. She then reminds the readers about the blizzard of 1979 which made Mayor Michael Bilandic get “kicked out of office six weeks later in the Democratic primary.” It seems that she wants to make a connection between the congressman and a snow job.
As evening approached, several thunderstorms began to take on the characteristics of a supercell thunderstorm. Supercells, which are intense, broadly rotating thunderstorms, are the most v...
Jump up ^ Galway, Joseph G. (1977). "Some Climatological Aspects of Tornado Outbreaks". Mon. Weather Rev. 105 (4): 477–84. Bibcode:1977MWRv..105..477G. doi:10.1175/1520-0493(1977)105<0477:SCAOTO>2.0.CO;2.
WHITE HURRICANE November gales are a curse on the Great Lakes. In 1835, a storm was said to have "swept the lakes clear of sail." Lake Erie was blasted by 60 mph winds on November 22 and 23, 1874. On Nov. 25, 1905 a November gale sank or stranded more than 16 ships. On Nov 11, 1940 (Armistice Day Storm) a storm wrecked 12 vessels.
Harris, Richard. "Dust Storms Threaten Snow Packs." NPR : National Public Radio. Public Broadcasting Service, 30 May 2006. Web. 26 Feb. 2011.
would snow up to depths of eight inches and sometimes it would rain and hail for
The foundation of the Great Lakes began around three billion years ago, which is known as the Precambrian Era. The Precambrian Era contains numerous ecological events, which consists of volcanic activity to erosion to the mountains and hills seen today being formed. Then during the Pleistocene Epoch or known as the “Ice Age, occurred between 1.6 million and 10,000 years ago. At least four times during the Pleistocene Epoch, large masses of ice advanced and retreated over the surface of what is now North America. As the glaciers advanced, giant sheets of ice flowed across the land, leveling mountains and carving out massive ...
"Snow Storms: What's a Blizzard." Forces of Nature: TQ 2000. Web. 3 Mar. 2014. .
Unfortunately this year has been an awful year for snow. As most people are used to michigan getting a lot of snowfall. A few years ago we got something like 3-4 feet of snow. Now i'm not sure why we don't have any snow but i'm sure that there is a reason. What that reason is is unknown. Some people would say it has to do with global warming… that might be the reason but i'm pretty
The year was 1992; a cold December arctic wind had brought a chance of snow to the area. It was the weekend and time to relax after a long hard week at work. The weather service had predicted several inches of snow to blanket the region by the next day. Not to worry: it was the weekend and traveling was not a necessity.