Mesoscale frequencies and seasonal snowfalls for different types of Lake Michigan snow storms.

Abstract

Daily GOES satellite images and daily snowfall records are used to find the seasonal snowfall in four geographical areas from each type of lake-effect storm and from nonlake-effect storms, for the snowfall seasons 1978/79 and 1979/80. Over the two seasons, 176 snowfall days were identified. Of these, 52% were nonlake-effect and 48% were lake-effect days. Of the 84 lake-effect days, 51% had wind-parallel bands, 22% had midlake bands, 2% had shoreline bands, and 25% had undetermined lake-effect cloud types. Along the west shore of the lake, lake-effect snows contributed 29% of the total snowfall, primarily from midlake bands. Along the east shore, lake-effect storms contributed 50% of the total snowfall. - from Author