1. Lake-Effect over Lakes Smaller than the Great Lakes Image:18 Jan. 2003 Burlington, VT Neil Laird Associate Professor Department of Geoscience, Hobart & William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY Acknowledgement: Jared Desrochers, Indiana Univ.Melissa Payer, Univ. at Albany Ryan Sobash, Oklahoma Univ.Natasha Hodas, Rutgers Univ. Jessica Popp, William Smith College Benjamin Albright, Penn State Univ. Sara Ganetis, Univ. at AlbanyAndrew Stieneke, N. C. State Univ. Alicia Bentley, Univ. at AlbanySamantha Santeiu, Iowa State Univ. Portions of this research were completed as part of the 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2010 undergraduate summer research program at Hobart & William Smith Colleges. Funding for these projects were provided by the National Science Foundation and the Provost's Office of Hobart & William Smith Colleges. Image courtesy of CAMNET operated by the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management

2. Lake-Effect over Small Lakes – Why should we care? Few studies have investigated lake-effect snow storms associated with lakes smaller than the Great Lakes Studies have shown lake-effect storms on small lakes can be significant Examples include: Great Salt Lake 15-hr event resulted in 36 cm (14 inches) Steenburgh and Onton (2001) Lake Tahoe 2-day event produced 53 cm (23 inches) Cairns et al. (2001) Lake Champlain 12-hr event lead to 33 cm (13 inches) and less than ¼ mile visibility Tardy (2000) Are there differences between small- and large-lake lake-effect processes or the parameter space of necessary conditions? Does scale matter? Do lake-effect events over small lakes have different challenges in predictability when compared to large lake events? Small lake environment likely more sensitive to climate variations than large lake systems (mesoscale - climate connection)

3. Comparing Lake Spatial Scales – Idealized Model Simulations Lake Area = 31, 416 km 2 Lake Area = 7,854 km 2 Quasi-steady state circulation after 36 hour simulations U = 12.5 m s -1 ;  T = 22.5°C; d  /dZ = 1.0 K km -1 below 1.5 km Laird, Kristovich and Walsh (2003)

4. Carpenter, D.M., 1993: The Lake Effect of the Great Salt Lake: Overview and Forecast Problems. Wea. Forecasting, 8, 181–193. Steenburgh et al., 2000: Climatology of lake-effect snowstorms of the Great Salt Lake. Mon. Wea. Rev., 128, 709–727. Steenburgh and Onton, 2001: Multiscale Analysis of the 7 December 1998 Great Salt Lake–Effect Snowstorm. Mon. Wea. Rev., 129, 1296–1317. Onton and Steenburgh, 2001: Diagnostic and Sensitivity Studies of the 7 December 1998 Great Salt Lake–Effect Snowstorm. Mon. Wea. Rev., 129, 1318–1338. Past Lake-Effect Studies of Small Lakes Tardy, 2000: Lake effect and lake enhanced snow in the Champlain Valley of Vermont. NWS/NOAA technical attachment (NO. 2000-05). 27 pp. Wilken, 1997: A lake-effect snow in Arkansas. NWS/NOAA technical attachment (SR/SSD 97-21). 3 pp. Sikora and Halverson, 2002: Multiyear observations of cloud lines associated with the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays. J. Appl. Meteor., 41, 825-831. Schultz et al., 2004: Snowbands during the cold-air outbreak of 23 January 2003. Mon. Wea. Rev., 132, 827-842. Huggins et al., 2001: A lake effect snowfall in Western Nevada - Part II: Radar Characteristics and quantitative precipitation estimates. Preprints, 18 th Conf. on Weather Analysis and Forecasting/14 th Conf. on Numerical Weather Prediction. Watson et al., 1998: High resolution numerical simulations of Finger Lakes snow bands. Preprints, 16 th Conf. on Wea. Anal. and Forecasting Cosgrove et al., 1996: Lake effect snow in the Finger Lakes region. Preprints, 15 th Conf. on Wea. Anal. and Forecasting.

5. Comparing Lake Spatial Scales Lake Tahoe (490 km 2 ) Lake Ontario (18,960 km 2 ) Great Salt Lake (4,400 km 2 ) Lake Champlain (1,127 km 2 ) Seneca Lake (175 km 2 )

6. Lake Champlain & New York State Finger Lakes Lake Champlain Eastern NYS Finger Lakes Eastern Lake Ontario satellite map courtesy of Google Maps

7. Lake-Effect Event Types – NYS Finger Lakes & Lake Champlain Lake ChamplainNYS Finger Lakes (a) 1347 UTC 08 Mar 1996(c) 1203 UTC 03 Dec 2003(b) 0605 UTC 09 Mar 2005 SYNOPLOenhNYSFL SYNOP LCLC-South

8. Lake-Effect Frequency – Lake Champlain & NYS Finger Lakes N of Champlain N of NYS Finger Lakes Laird, Desrochers and Payer (2009) Laird, Sobash and Hodas (2009) NYS Finger Lakes Lake Champlain (11 winters) (9 winters) 2.9 2.7 1.9 1.0 1.5 1.3 2.0 3.9 0.9

9. Finger Lakes Lake-Effect Frequency – Individual Lakes

10. Lake-Effect Event Duration & Timing End Time Start Time 75% Duration Mean: 9.4 hrs 75% 90% Event Duration Start Time End Time NYS Finger Lakes Lake Champlain Mean: 12.1 hrs

11. Lake-Effect Event – Finger Lakes – SLP composites NYSFL H L LOenh H L SYNOP H L

12. Lake-Effect Event – Lake Champlain – SLP composites H L H L H L

13. Lake Champlain & New York State Finger Lakes Lake Champlain Eastern NYS Finger Lakes Eastern Lake Ontario SYR ROC PEO ITH BTV PLB CHYU VMCR satellite map courtesy of Google Maps

14. Boxplots

15. Surface Temperatures (based on hourly observations during events) NYS Finger Lakes Lake Champlain

16. Lake – Air Temperature Difference NYS Finger Lakes Lake Champlain

17. Dew Point Temperature NYS Finger Lakes Lake Champlain

18. Sea-Level Pressure NYS Finger Lakes Lake Champlain

19. Surface Wind Speed NYS Finger Lakes Lake Champlain

20. Finger Lakes Lake-Effect: Depth of Stable Layer (a) 1347 UTC 08 Mar 1996(c) 1203 UTC 03 Dec 2003(b) 0605 UTC 09 Mar 2005 SYNOPLOenhNYSFL

21. Finger Lakes Lake-Effect North South

22. Great Salt Lake, Lake Tahoe, & Pyramid Lake Great Salt Lake Lake Tahoe Pyramid Lake satellite map courtesy of Google Maps

23. Lake-Effect Frequency: Small Lakes vs. Large Lake N of Champlain N of NYS Finger Lakes 80 60 40 20 0 N of Ontario Finger Lakes Lake Champlain Lake Ontario Tahoe / Pyramid

24. Summary Lake-effect occurs on NYS Finger Lakes with an average of 11 events per winter Lake Champlain - 7 events per winter Lake Tahoe / Pyramid Lake - 4 events per winter Although NYS Finger Lakes are smaller than Lake Champlain, favorable lake-effect forcing conditions are more easily reached  more events Attribute to Lake Ontario being upstream providing source of heat, moisture and pre-existing lake-effect circulations Lake-effect type and associated conditions linked to evolutional stage of synoptic pattern and southward establishment of polar air mass SYNOP  LOenh  NYSFL (NYS Finger Lakes) SYNOP  LC-North  LC-South (Lake Champlain) Narrow set of conditions necessary for lake-effect on small lakes Open question: How do these compare to Great Lakes lake-effect conditions? Open question: What is the predictability of small lake LE events? Null cases? Link between mesoscale events and regional climate variability Open question: Given the narrow set of conditions for lake-effect on small lakes, can the frequency and variability of these events be an indicator for changes in climate or demonstrate what might happen with regional climate changes?