Lake effect snow... in Oklahoma?

[Rocky Rascovich]

Earlier thismorning I tuned into the NOAA Wx radio like I usually do and heard the current conditions report, snow was reported for a couple of hours at TUL. I thought that this was interesting because I was not expecting any snow.. no forecasted disturbances coming through as the arctic high took full control.

Checking out the current analysis and reading the forecast discussions from the region was an eye opener from the TUL NWS where they were talking about lake effect snow flurries, mostly caused from Lake Oologah which is about 30-40mi. north north east of Tulsa. Apparently this lake created a plume of snowshowers which was affecting areas all the way into Tulsa.

Coming from an area that's all to well familiar with lake effect (The Keweenaw Peninsula in Upper Mich.) I know how Lake Superior and the other great lakes influence weather, I know that even smaller lakes like Mille Lacs in MN. can create a minor "lake effect" but... Oologah here in Okla.? Apparently this has been happening around Grand Lake as well which is a little bigger I think.

The question is.. just how big does a lake have to be to trigger "lake effect"?
I know obviously the lack of ice coverage and delta T's (difference between surface water temp. and air temp. at a certain level above the water source) would be important factors in setting the stage for that kind of event. Would a lake even as small as Lake Hefner or Overholser here in OKC trigger lake effect? I could learn a little more about this so feedback would be welcome.

 

[Robert Bone]

I'm about 15 miles south of Tulsa and was surprised to see snow falling here this morning and it is continuing pretty good actually here at 10 AM. Enough has fallen to almost cover the ground and pretty good size flakes still falling. I'm a pretty good distance from any of the area lakes.

I'm glad the forecast low here wasn't met apparently. I don't have a device to log the lowest temp but it was still 9F at 0330 when I checked and 14F at 0800. I'm ready for this current high to move on now.

 

[John Vandehei]

Generally, for Lake Effect, you need approximately 60-70 miles of fetch across open water to get decent lake effect. Typically, usually only the Great Lakes (at least here in the US) are large enough to provide that much open water. If the wind is just right, the Great Salt Lake in Utah can create lake effect if the wind is coming from the north-northwest, which puts the wind flow across the longest expanse of that lake. However, I do recall an event when I was working in Madison, Wisconsin. Madison is built around two lakes; Lake Monona and Lake Mendota. They range from about 2 to 5 miles across, typically too small for lake effect. They do create lake effect clouds often in winter, but that's about it. One day, we were receiving public reports of several inches of snow on the southeast side of Lake Monona. It was very localized, being confined to one small neighborhood. No snow was reported anywhere else in the region. This event was too small to pick up on radar, and we never sent anyone out to verify it. However, given several people were calling in to report (and asking why it was snowing when it wasn't in the forecast), I have to assume it actually occurred. I also recall another thread on Stormtrack a few months ago inquiring about lake effect on small lakes. So it would seem that there are rare circumstances in which a small lake (say 10 miles across or less) can create lake effect. Since these events are quite rare, it's unlikely that anyone has been able to document and study these situations in order to figure out what conditions are needed to produce these evets.

 

[Adam Lucio]

Thats interesting to read. I love lake effect snow. Those bands are so narrow and intense with rates up to 5"/hr. If you've ever driven down I-94 during an intense LE event conditions can go from perfectly clear to white out armageddon and clear again within 5 minutes. You can actually see the wall of snow before you hit it. Its the winter version of core punching.

NOAA just had a front page article about LE. http://www.noaa.gov/features/02_monitoring/index.html

I also went on a LE "chase recently"

 

[Connor Keef]

McAlester, OK, which is about 20 miles from the shoreline of Lake Eufaula, had quite a bit of lake effect snow this morning.

 

[Jeff Duda]

A few years ago, a very narrow band of lake effect snow formed off of the Saylorville lake/reservoir just north of Des Moines and dropped a couple inches of snow across a very narrow part of town. Saylorville lake is only about one mile wide, but many miles long. I can't find any pictures of it, but there is a shot from KCCI's radar showing the snow band.

 

[Jeff Piotrowski]

Lake Effect Snow Tulsa

Rocky,

I returned home from a business trip last night when I arrived at Tulsa airport 11:00 PM temp was around 10. I headed home east of Owasso I arrived the temperature outside 5 with about four inches of snow still on the ground and clear skies.

The first thing I hear is its SNOWING AGAIN around 7:00 am from Kathryn. I had to think what was causing it to be snowing. Then I remembered the Lake effect snow from Oologah Lake to my NNE about ten miles. It is a rare event but can remember three other times in the past forty years of this happing.

PS: The trip home last night. The pilot says over the PA I have good news and bad news. The good news is the trip here was fast with the tail wind. But the bad news is here at 36K feet we have a head wind of 180 mph were going to be about thirty minutes late.

 

[David Mikulec]

How far can lake effect snow travel downstream? We were getting it off of Lake Michigan here in central Kentucky last week. Are there any records, or data recorded anywhere?

 

[mark plate]

McAlester, OK, which is about 20 miles from the shoreline of Lake Eufaula, had quite a bit of lake effect snow this morning.

I was working that morning, and we noticed the narrow band of clouds off Lake Eufaula into McAlester...the clouds were reported in the observation at KMLC, but no snow was reported by the ASOS. We suspected it was likely happening somewhere down there, so glad to hear we were correct!

We had lake effect off Oologah here in Tulsa that morning as others have discussed...it's really not all that rare of an occurrence...I last witnessed it 2-3 years ago. What is rarer is for it to last as long as it did Saturday...8-9 hours.

 

[mark plate]

How far can lake effect snow travel downstream? We were getting it off of Lake Michigan here in central Kentucky last week. Are there any records, or data recorded anywhere?

A long ways...especially if the fetch is long and the orographics are favorable. When I was an intern in Beckley, WV, we saw lake effect snow off both Michigan and Erie all the time, and Beckley is a long way from Lake Michigan. Orographics play a big role though too...we typically saw more LES in Beckley than they did in Charleston.

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

Lake Effect is both a bizarre and extremely dangerous phenomina (winter driving / blizzard conditions). I have also written this up on my web site, and the full details on it can be found here: http://www.sky-chaser.com/winter.htm

Just about any large body of water can create a lake effect, even Salt Lake in Utah ... But - by far - the Great Lakes is most notorious for this. Any lee side of the lake, with a "fetch" of 50 miles or more, can create an instant blizzard (wind-swept snow showers). Also, a NARROW body of water, such as the Finger Lakes or long river reservoir, can produce lake effect snow (in a very narrow band) if the wind is blowing lengthwise across that lake.

It also occurs in HIGH PRESSURE systems building in behind a departing low, where the wind gradient / cold advection (Canada airmass) is maximized. The snow squalls (wind-swept showers) are often no more than 10,000 feet MSL top heights (cold cumulus).

The side of the lake with the greatest precip is the lee side (downwind), and the wind direction is crucial. For example, the Lake Effect is common with Lake Erie from any wind direction, dumping snow in fort Erie with a NW flow. However, a cold WSW flow, blowing LENGTHWISE across the lake, can produce incredible snowfall in places like Buffalo, NY ... A bit inland, with lifting of the poorly mixed boundary layer over small geographic features, such as the Tug Hill Plateau, enhance the snow even more. Despite the low topped nature of the convective cells in the squalls, lightning SOMETIMES can make for interesting thundersnow events, especially in the aformentioned Buffalo area.

I had been on a few of such lake-effect snow "chases" in 2008 when I was in Chicago. The weather in Chicago one morning was -15 F with crystal clear skies and winds 30-40 MPH from the NW.

Sixty miles across the lake (Michigan) in Saint Joseph, Michigan, the SAME frigid Canadian air mass (continental polar high pressure behind a departing "Alberta Clipper" low) had blown across the lake, and made for what I called a "frozen hurricane"!

The 35 degree lake water, with -15 F air passing over it, created a full-on blizzard, with snow accumulating 2-3" per hour, and winds gusting over 50-MPH with freezing spray and waves up to 15 feet on the east side of the lake with temperatures +5 F (warmed a bit by the heat "flux" from the lake).

The lake would be "steaming", because of the relative temperature between +35 F water (as cold as that seems) and the -15 F air is actually a 50 degree F temperature difference (wow) ... That's as if the air temperature was 75 F and the lake being 125 F (steaming hot).

The snow rate gets the worst about 2-3 miles inland because of the frictional drag (boundary layer) against hills, trees, ect in a poorly mixed enviroment as the wind first comes ashore. The marine (lake) layer rises over this slower moving air, enhancing the forcing even more, intensifying the snow, despite lighter winds along the immediate surface.

It was also interesting that once you leave the areas affected by the lake effect bands, you are back in clear blue skies, cold Canadian air, and the sun is out and there is no snow even on the ground! The "blizzard to nothing" line along the side of the lake is like 5 miles or less wide ... Wild stuff!

 

[David Mikulec]

GREAT info in this thread. Growing up in Cleveland I've had plenty of experience with LE snows and blizzards but never really studied the nuts and bolts of the science behind it, other than knowing it was due to cold air blowing over open lake waters. But than again, I've never been especially fond of winter, call it willful ignorance.

Thanks Chris!

 

[Todd Brown]

Rocky,

Sunday afternoon, I was traveling down Kilpatrick Tpk. from NW Expwy to I-40. I went from nothing to moderate snow for about 1 mile between Wilshire and Hwy 66., then back to nothing. Traveled to Midwest City, and then came back about 3 hrs later, and it was still snowing in the exact same spot. The only explanation I could come up with was south wind causing a mini lake effect off Overholser. I remember one time when I was about 10 or 11 years old, I lived in Bethany and it started snowing pretty hard, we got about a couple of inches pretty quickly and that night on the news, Gary England was talking about Bethany getting snow and that it was confined to a small area of Bethany and he was claiming that as lake effect off Overholser.

 

[Adam Wolff]

Rocky,

Sunday afternoon, I was traveling down Kilpatrick Tpk. from NW Expwy to I-40. I went from nothing to moderate snow for about 1 mile between Wilshire and Hwy 66., then back to nothing. Traveled to Midwest City, and then came back about 3 hrs later, and it was still snowing in the exact same spot. The only explanation I could come up with was south wind causing a mini lake effect off Overholser. I remember one time when I was about 10 or 11 years old, I lived in Bethany and it started snowing pretty hard, we got about a couple of inches pretty quickly and that night on the news, Gary England was talking about Bethany getting snow and that it was confined to a small area of Bethany and he was claiming that as lake effect off Overholser.

The narrow band of snowfall you witnessed resulted from clouding seeding from a nearby power plant. More on the discussion http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/showthread.php?t=22898