Multivariate analysis of lake-effect snowstorms in western New York

Abstract

The Great Lakes region of the United States is subjected to a wintertime convective phenomenon known as lake-effect snow (LES). These events are capable of producing significant quantities of snow over localized areas by developing elongated bands that tap into heat and moisture exchanges between the warm lake surface and the overlying continental polar air. Several factors are believed to affect the snowfall intensity associated with LES events, including the ice coverage over the lake where the snowbands originate. Improvements in the quality of snowfall forecasts associated with these LES events require an approach that uses a larger number of events than used in previously investigated case studies. The intensity of 91 LES events was assessed using the total volume of snow (snow depth multiplied by snow coverage area) per day in western New York as reported by the National Weather Service in Buffalo, New York, from 1998-2011. These events were cross-referenced against the fetch, capping inversion height, thermodynamic instability, wind speed, and ice coverage over Lake Erie during each event. A multivariate regression revealed that only fetch, inversion height, and ice coverage were statistically significant in determining the intensity of the LES event, with ice coverage having the greatest impact. These parameters accounted for approximately 30% of the overall snowfall volume variability in our LES events. An examination of two events demonstrated that other environmental controls-such as orography and low-level moisture-may have affected the quality of the snowfall predicted by our regression.

Numerical study on the climatic effect of the lake clusters over Tibetan Plateau in summer

“…Additionally, the warmer (cooler) lake surfaces during winter/nighttime (summer/daytime) tend to generate a convergent (divergent) flow due to the lake-land thermal gradient, which enhances (suppress) the over-lake convective development and cloud formation (Ruthrich et al 2015;Zhao et al 2012). Such lake effects can lead to increases of precipitation and heavy snowfall during winter especially in the downwind regions (Pereira and Muscato 2013;Theeuwes et al 2010;Vavrus et al 2013). Different from the climatic effect of the Great Lakes, Samuelsson et al (2010) found that the lakes in the northern Europe with temperate climate act to increase T 2m for all seasons and enhance the convective precipitation during late summer and early autumn.…”

Effect of a large and very shallow lake on local summer precipitation over the Lake Taihu basin in China

“…It is well known that a lake, due to its unique physical properties and sharp contrast with surrounding land areas, usually exerts a significant influence on local weather and climate [ Jacobs and Grondin , ; Bates et al ., ; Scott and Huff , ; Schmidlin , ; Long et al ., ; Rice , ]. Owing to its severe negative impacts such as economic losses and severe casualties, lake‐effect snowstorms, which occur over northern and temperate lake areas during cool seasons when the relatively warm water heats and moistens the overlying cold air mass that passes over the lakes and thus leads to an enhancement of precipitation in the downwind regions, have been primarily documented [ Lavoie , ; Niziol et al ., ; Notaro et al ., ; Pereira and Muscato , ; Ulrich and Janiszeski , ]. Moreover, selection of study regions has mainly focused on large and deep lakes, such as the Great Lakes [ Lavoie , ; Hjelmfelt , ; Notaro et al ., ; Vavrus et al ., ], the Great Salt Lake [ McMillen and Steenburgh , ], and the Lake Victoria Basin [ Song et al ., ; Sun et al ., ; Williams et al ., ].…”