A Lake-Effect Snowband over Lake Champlain

• Published in: Monthly weather review 2007-11, Vol.135 (11), p.3895-3900
• Main Authors: PAYER, Melissa, DESROCHERS, Jared, LAIRD, Neil F
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Air temperature; Airports; Cameras; Cold; Doppler sonar; Earth, ocean, space; Environmental conditions; Exact sciences and technology; External geophysics; Ferries; Freshwater; Lakes; Meteorological services; Meteorology; Precipitation; Radar; Radar reflectivity; Reflectance; Sea level; Sea level pressure; Shorelines; Snow; Surveillance radar; Temperature; Temperature differences; Water temperature; Weather; Wind; Wind speed
• ISSN: 0027-0644; 1520-0493
• DOI: 10.1175/2007MWR2031.1

The focus of this article is on a lake-effect snow event that began shortly before 0800 UTC 18 January 2003 and dissipated by 1800 UTC, lasting about 10 h. During the event, the snowband extended northward after initially forming over the southern portion of Lake Champlain and was observed by both the National Weather Service (NWS) Weather Surveillance Radar-1988 Doppler (WSR-88D) located near Burlington, Vermont (KCXX), and a highresolution camera within the CAMNET network (see online at http://www.hazecam.net; Figs. 1 and 2). During the early evolution of the lake-effect band when air temperatures were reported to be about -25°C at both Burlington and Plattsburgh, radar reflectivity values reached nearly 20 dBZ within the band (Figs. 2c-e).\n This resulted in a transition in the snowband from a branched shore-parallel structure (Fig. 2c) forced primarily by land breezes to a single, windparallel, midlake snowband oriented along the major lake axis (Fig. 4e) and forced primarily by strengthening southerly winds and the weakening of land breezes.