Rare 'inland lake' lake-effect snow up north
Snow plume blowing off Lake of the Woods Wednesday morning
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You don't see this every day.
A relatively rare lake-effect snow plume is blowing off Lake of the Woods Wednesday morning.
Anatomy of lake effect
Lake-effect snow is caused when colder air temperatures blow over relatively warmer water temperatures on big lakes.
When the temperature contrast exceeds about 23 degrees, the moisture from the warmer lakes can be efficiently transferred to the colder air mass passing above and wrung out as snow on the downwind side of big lakes.
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Water surface temperatures on Minnesota’s bigger inland lakes ranges between about 44 and 48 degrees this week.
Air temperatures over land around Lake of the Woods Wednesday morning hovered around 18 degrees. That’s a 26-degree temperature contrast over Lake of the Woods. That’s big enough to generate the lake-effect plume on radar at the top of this post.
We’re used to seeing lake-effect snow in winter over big bodies of water like the Great Lakes.
But this week’s unusually cold weather this early in the season is generating some lake-effect snow on Minnesota’s bigger inland lakes.
