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September and April or May. However a review of many more cases in 2012 found that the peaks of activity was really in the fall (mid-October to mid-December) and spring (early April) and that there was a minimum between those maximum. That same study found on average 13 events per year, well or not so well defined combined.
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set-up. The average is 4 to 5 well-defined events annually and the same number of marginal events. Slightly more than half of the well-defined events persist for 13 to 24 hours. In a 2000 study, researchers found that the larger number of cases were between
October and February, with outlier cases in
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system. An accurate forecast involves identifying the crucial requirements for lake-effect precipitation. The basic requirements are a conditionally unstable environment, significant moisture and a lifting mechanism. Many different variables go into these requirements, which results in a
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minute-by-minute event. Through extensive analyses and field experiments the understanding of lake-effect snowstorms has improved drastically in recent years. Many general rules of thumb have been developed in order to predict the occurrence, location and severity of lake-effect snow.
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Lake-effect snow around the Great Salt Lake is generated in a similar fashion to elsewhere in the world. However, the Great Salt Lake primarily provides a lifting mechanism and acts as an atmospheric destabilizer, which encourages
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Most well-defined events leave accumulations of 8 inches (20 cm) or more, and in some cases more than 40 inches (100 cm), along a well-defined corridor.
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passage, where the winds are predominantly northwesterly and the air is much colder than the lake. When the land-lake breeze blows towards the lake, there is a
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to occur from
September through May. Lake-enhanced snowstorms are often attributed to creating what is locally known as "The Greatest Snow on Earth".
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Lake-effect is typically initiated during the night when land-breeze convergence is favored and convection occurs predominantly over the lake.
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impacts due to their significant precipitation amounts. The Great Salt Lake almost never freezes and can warm rapidly, which allows
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During the daytime lake-effect precipitation dissipates when solar heating creates scattered widespread convection over the land.
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378:"Great Salt Lake–Effect Precipitation: Observed Frequency, Characteristics, and Associated Environmental Factors"
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Forecasting skill has drastically improved in recent years due to a better observational network including the
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The Great Salt Lake contributes minimal amounts of moisture so that upstream moisture is a crucial variable.
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A set of rules has been developed by local forecasters to predict the development of lake enhanced snow:
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further capitalizes on lake enhancement and can receive multiple feet of snow from lake-effect alone.
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that acts to channel the cold air over the center of the lake and further enhance precipitation. The
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Limited amounts of directional and vertical wind shear tend to produce heavier precipitation events.
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An inversion or stable layer below 700 mbar (70 kPa) has never yielded lake-effect snow.
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A minimal temperature difference of 29 °F (16 °C) between the surface and the 700
420:"What is lake effect snow? It's impacting Utah, but what does that mean and how does it happen?"
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The 700 mbar winds typically determine the geographic position of the precipitation
478:"Lake Effect of the Great Salt Lake: Scientific Overview and Forecast Diagnostics"
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Great Salt Lake enhanced precipitation occurs when a strong, cold, northwesterly
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245:"Forecasting the 31 October 2004 Lake-Effect Snowstorm of the Great Salt Lake"
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A strong
Northwesterly flow maximizes precipitation for the Salt Lake Valley.
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The number of events varies considerably from year to year, according to the
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435:"The lake-effect of the Great Salt Lake: Overview and forecast problems"
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Lake-effect snow can occur in concert with synoptic scale storm systems.
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A large lake-land temperature difference favors over-lake convergence.
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into the overlying air. As a result, minimal amounts of moisture and
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are added to the air moving over the lake. The high relief of the
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Radar image of enhanced precipitation by the lake and convergence.
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333:"Climatology of lake-effect snowstorms of the Great Salt Lake"
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Alcott, Trevor I.; Steenburgh, W. J.; Laird, Neil F. (2012).
274:"Orographic Influences on a Great Salt Lake–Effect Snowstorm"
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10.1175/1520-0434(1993)008<0181:TLEOTG>2.0.CO;2
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10.1175/1520-0493(2000)128<0709:COLESO>2.0.CO;2
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Steenburgh, W. J.; Halvorson, S. F.; Onton, D. J. (2000).
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of the Great Salt Lake prevents freezing but reduces the
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are a common occurrence over the region and have major
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20:is a small but detectable influence on the local
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272:Alcott, Trevor; Steenburgh, Jim (July 2013).
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529:Features of the Uinta Mountains
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519:Snow or ice weather phenomena
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145:Forecasting lake-effect snow
46:lake enhanced precipitation
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476:Steenburgh, W. J (1999).
433:Carpenter, D. M. (1993).
108:saturation vapor pressure
94:. This is common after a
405:10.1175/WAF-D-12-00016.1
304:10.1175/MWR-D-12-00328.1
514:Natural history of Utah
440:Weather and Forecasting
383:Weather and Forecasting
24:and weather around the
252:WFO Salt Lake City, UT
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18:Great Salt Lake effect
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453:1993WtFor...8..181C
396:2012WtFor..27..954A
350:2000MWRv..128..709S
295:2013MWRv..141.2432A
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484:on April 25, 2007
83:and latent heat.
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161:Rules of thumb
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64:Main article:
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42:socio-economic
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486:. Retrieved
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220:Chinook wind
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129:Climatology
116:latent heat
77:Great Lakes
503:Categories
226:References
96:cold front
73:convection
38:snowstorms
313:0027-0644
176:(70
123:mountains
209:See also
135:synoptic
104:salinity
81:moisture
449:Bibcode
422:. 2021.
392:Bibcode
346:Bibcode
291:Bibcode
120:Wasatch
22:climate
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151:NEXRAD
285:(7).
248:(PDF)
490:2019
309:ISSN
259:2019
174:mbar
110:and
92:lake
88:wind
30:Utah
16:The
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287:AMS
283:141
178:kPa
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
