North America The Great Lakes region Cold winds in the winter typically prevail from the northwest in the Great Lakes region, producing the most dramatic lake-effect snowfalls on the southern and eastern shores of the
Great Lakes. This lake effect results in much greater snowfall amounts on the southern and eastern shores compared to the northern and western shores of the Great Lakes. The most affected areas include the
Upper Peninsula of Michigan;
Northern New York and
Central New York; particularly the
Tug Hill Region,
Western New York;
Northwestern Pennsylvania;
Northeastern Ohio;
southwestern Ontario and central Ontario; Northeastern Illinois (along the shoreline of Lake Michigan); northwestern and north central
Indiana (mostly between
Gary and
Elkhart); northern
Wisconsin (near Lake Superior); and
West Michigan. Lake-effect snows on the Tug Hill plateau (east of
Lake Ontario) can frequently set daily records for snowfall in the United States. Tug Hill receives, typically, over of snow each winter. The snowiest portions of the Tug Hill, near the junction of the towns of
Montague,
Osceola,
Redfield, and
Worth, average over of snow annually. From February 3–12, 2007, a lake-effect snow event left of snow in 10 days at North Redfield on the Tug Hill Plateau. Other examples major prolonged lake effect snowstorms on the Tug Hill include December 27, 2001, - January 1, 2002, when of snow fell in six days in Montague, January 10–14, 1997, when of snow fell in five days in North Redfield, and January 15–22, 1940, when over eight feet of snow fell in eight days at Barnes Corners.
Lake Erie produces a similar effect for a zone stretching from the eastern suburbs of
Cleveland through
Erie to
Buffalo. Remnants of lake-effect snows from Lake Erie have been observed to reach as far south as
Garrett County, Maryland, and as far east as
Geneva, New York. Because it is not as deep as the other lakes, Erie warms rapidly in the spring and summer, and is frequently the only Great Lake to freeze over in winter. Once frozen, the resulting ice cover alleviates lake-effect snow downwind of the lake. Based on stable isotope evidence from lake sediment coupled with historical records of increasing lake-effect snow, global warming has been predicted to result in a further increase in lake-effect snow. A very large
snowbelt in the United States exists on the
Upper Peninsula of Michigan, near the cities of
Houghton,
Marquette, and
Munising. These areas typically receive of snow each season. For comparison, on the western shore,
Duluth, Minnesota receives per season.
Western Michigan, western
Northern Lower Michigan, and
Northern Indiana can get heavy lake-effect snows as winds pass over Lake Michigan and deposit snows over
Muskegon,
Traverse City,
Grand Rapids,
Kalamazoo,
New Carlisle,
South Bend, and
Elkhart, but these snows abate significantly before
Lansing or
Fort Wayne. When winds become northerly or aligned between 330° and 030°, a single band of lake-effect snow may form, which extends down the length of Lake Michigan. This long fetch often produces a very intense, yet localized, area of heavy snowfall, affecting cities such as
La Porte and
Gary. Because Southwestern Ontario is surrounded by water on three sides, many parts of Southwestern and Central Ontario get a large part of their winter snow from lake-effect snow. This region is notorious for the whiteouts that can suddenly reduce highway visibility on North America's busiest highway (
Ontario Highway 401) from clear to zero. The region most commonly affected spans from
Port Stanley in the west, the
Bruce Peninsula in the north,
Niagara-on-the-Lake to the east, and
Fort Erie to the south. The heaviest accumulations usually happen in the Bruce Peninsula, which is between
Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. So long as the Great Lakes are not frozen over, the only time the Bruce Peninsula does not get lake-effect snow is when the wind is directly from the south. Studies have suggested that warmer lake surface temperatures can increase evaporation and convective activity, potentially intensifying lake-effect snowfall downwind of the Great Lakes in the future. File:Buffalo2001-20.jpg|
Buffalo, New York, after of snow fell from December 24, 2001, to December 28, 2001 File:Fultonles.jpg|Fulton, New York, after a snowburst dropped of snow over most of Oswego County January 28–31, 2004 File:Snow-removal-cleveland-4.jpg|The Veteran's Day storm of November 9–14, 1996. At the height of the storm, over 160,000 customers were without power in Greater Cleveland alone, as the storm produced isolated snowfall tallies approaching .
Elsewhere in the United States The southern and southeastern sides of the
Great Salt Lake receive significant lake-effect snow. Since the Great Salt Lake never freezes, the lake effect can influence the weather along the
Wasatch Front year-round. The lake effect largely contributes to the annual snowfall amounts recorded south and east of the lake, and in average snowfall reaching in the
Wasatch Range. The snow, which is often very light and dry because of the semiarid climate, is referred to as the "Greatest Snow on Earth" in the mountains. Lake-effect snow contributes to roughly six to eight snowfalls per year in
Salt Lake City, with about 10% of the city's precipitation being contributed by the phenomenon. On one occasion in December 2016, lake-effect snow fell in central
Mississippi from a lake band off
Ross Barnett Reservoir. The
West Coast occasionally experiences ocean-effect showers, usually in the form of rain at lower elevations south of about the mouth of the
Columbia River. These occur whenever an Arctic air mass from western Canada is drawn westward out over the Pacific Ocean, typically by way of the
Fraser Valley, returning shoreward around a center of low pressure. Cold air flowing southwest from the Fraser Valley can also pick up moisture over the
Strait of Georgia and
Strait of Juan de Fuca, then rise over the northeastern slopes of the
Olympic Mountains, producing heavy, localized snow between
Port Angeles and
Sequim, as well as areas in
Kitsap County and the
Puget Sound region. While snow of any type is very rare in Florida, the phenomenon of gulf-effect snow has been observed along the northern coast of the
Gulf of Mexico a few times in history. More recently, "ocean-effect" snow occurred on January 24, 2003, when wind off the Atlantic, combined with air temperatures in the 30 °F range, brought snow flurries briefly to the Atlantic Coast of northern Florida seen in the air as far south as
Cape Canaveral.
Eurasia Istanbul and northern Turkey Because the southern Black Sea is relatively warm (around 13 °C or 55 °F at the beginning of winter, typically 10 to 6 °C or 50 to 43 °F by the end), sufficiently cold air aloft can create significant snowfalls in a relatively short period of time. Furthermore, cold air, when it arrives to the region, tends to move slowly, creating days and sometimes weeks of occasional lake-effect snowfall. On multiple occasions, lake-effect snowfall events have lasted for more than a week, and official single-storm snow depth totals have exceeded downtown and around the city. Earlier, unofficial measurements are often higher, due to the relative dearth of sufficiently old weather stations in the region; some sources claim up to of snowfall during the blizzard of March 1987. Meanwhile, snowfall in mountainous provinces in this region is amplified by
orographic effect, often resulting in snowfall of several meters, especially at higher elevations.
Around the Baltic Sea In Northern Europe, cold, dry air masses from Russia can blow over the
Baltic Sea and cause heavy snow squalls on areas of the southern and eastern coasts of Sweden, as well as on the Danish island of
Bornholm, the east coast of
Jutland and the northern coast of
Poland. For the northern parts of the Baltic Sea, this happens mainly in the early winter, since it freezes later. Southeast Norway can also experience heavy sea snow events with east-north-easterly winds. Especially, coastal areas from
Kragerø to
Kristiansand have had incredible snow depths in the past with intense persistent snowbands from
Skagerrak (the coastal city of Arendal recorded in a single week in late February 2007). Although Fennoscandia is lined with an abundance of lakes, this type of snowfall is rare in these, due to the shallow freshwater freezing early in the cold interiors. One notable exception occurred in the middle of May 2008, when
Leksand on the long-since unfrozen lake of
Siljan received an accumulation of .
East Asia The Sea of Japan creates snowfall in the mountainous western Japanese prefectures of
Niigata and
Nagano, parts of which are known collectively as
snow country (
Yukiguni). In addition to Japan, much of maritime Korea and the
Shandong Peninsula experience these conditions.
Siberia Strong winds and a very large, deep lake enhance snowfall around
Lake Baikal in the fall; however, nearly the entire surface of the lake freezes from January until Spring, precluding lake-effect snow.
Iran Moving of polar or Siberian high-pressure centers along Caspian Sea regarding to relatively warmer water of this sea can make heavy snowfalls in the northern coast of Iran. Several blizzards have been reported in this region during the last decades. In February 2014, heavy snowfall reached on the coastline in
Gilan and
Mazandaran provinces of Iran. The heaviest snowfall was reported in
Abkenar village near
Anzali Lagoon. File:Caspian-lake-effect.gif|IRIMO radar animation of lake effect snow in southern coast of Caspian Sea in the north of Iran File:Caspiansatelliteimage.jpg|Lake-effect clouds over
Caspian Sea on January 7, 2008
United Kingdom In the United Kingdom, easterly winds bringing cold continental air across the
North Sea can lead to a similar phenomenon. Locally, it is also known as "lake-effect snow" despite the snow coming in from the sea rather than a lake. Similarly during a north-westerly wind, snow showers can form coming in from the
Liverpool Bay, coming down the
Cheshire gap, causing snowfall in the
West Midlands—this formation resulted in the white Christmas of 2004 in the area, and most recently the heavy snowfall of 8 December 2017 and 30 January 2019. The best-known example occurred in
January 1987, when record-breaking cold air (associated with an upper low) moved across the North Sea towards the UK. The result was over 2 ft of snow for coastal areas, leading to communities being cut off for over a week. The latest of these events to affect Britain's east coast occurred on November 30, 2017; February 28, 2018; and March 17, 2018; in connection with the
2018 Great Britain and Ireland cold wave. The second event of winter 2017/18 was particularly severe, with up to falling in total over the 27th–28th. Similarly, northerly winds blowing across the relatively warm waters of the English Channel during cold spells can bring significant snowfall to the French region of Normandy, where snow drifts exceeding 10 ft (3 m) were measured in March 2013. File:Snow-chart.png|Chart showing the sea-effect snow event of January 1987 in the UK: A continuous stream of showers deposited over of snow over SE coastal regions. File:Lakeeffect.png|NetWeather radar image showing "lake-effect" snow over
Kent and northeast England == See also ==