12/5/10

Lake Effect Snow Monster

It's here, the dreaded "Lake Effect Snow Monster".


From the back window of my studio, and that is not fog, but snow. A few minutes before I took this, it was sunny.



Here, a screen grab showing the bands that are common with lake effect snow. Cold air out of the Northwest,  crosses the relatively warm lake waters, picks up moisture, and dumps it as snow. The snow squall bands can and often do, produce intense snow falls where visibility is just a few feet. This makes driving very dangerous, especially when it is cold enough for roads to ice over. Last winter, driving into Chicago on the Toll Road, that green line just above the red dot that is South Bend, after a Snow Monster event, I counted 42 vehicles either still in the ditches or indications that one had been pulled out. I could only see 2/3rds of the ditches. This was an approximately 40 mile stretch of road; skid offs were clumped into groups, probably due to the banding of snow squalls.

Slip sliding, and shoveling are Olympic events here in Northern Indiana. It is not uncommon to spend a sunny day in Chicago, then drive into a whiteout on the way home as I enter the line of NW wind off of the lake. The seven day forecast shows snow, unending snow, every day, snow ...