The Lake Effect

Some of you may be wondering what the heck has been going on in upstate New York and how and why some areas around Oswego County are being hit with 10 feet of snow in a week's time.

For starters, this does nothing to prove or disprove global warming. It has nothing to do with climate change. Not a damned thing.

It has everything to do with well known meteorological phenomena, a favorable weather pattern, and that the Great Lakes have not yet frozen over. Severe snowfalls happen fairly regularly - every decade or so.

Upstate New York is downwind of the Great Lakes. When the lakes do not freeze and cold Arctic air sweeps in from Canada, it pulls moisture off the lakes, and the cold air wrings out over upstate New York. The result is spectacular snowfall.

There is a snow belt downwind of all the Great Lakes where lake effect snows are common. The lake effect snows are more common and more pronounced in New York than elsewhere because the geography makes the snowfall more likely. Indeed, more than a few single day records for snowfall are set in New York's Tug Hill Plateau region because of favorable conditions.

The latest lake effect snows will finally come to an end when the wind shifts or the lakes freeze over, cutting off the supply of moisture feeding the weather pattern. Until then, the snow will keep coming.

For areas like Oswego, New York, that relief may come later this week, as the snow squalls appear to be ready to taper off.

UPDATE:
Some parts of upstate New York have now received 146 inches of snow in just the past week, which would set a new record for snowfall in a 7-day period:

The snow just won't stop. Intense lake-effect snow squalls that buried communities along eastern Lake Ontario for nine straight days diminished Sunday - then started up again early Monday.

Unofficially, the squalls have dumped 12 feet, 2 inches of snow at Redfield. If accurate, that would break the state record of 10 feet, 7 inches of snow that fell in nearby Montague over seven days ending Jan. 1, 2002, said Steve McLaughlin, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Buffalo.

A weather service representative was being sent to Redfield on Monday to verify the total.

Residents of this hardy upstate New York village seem unfazed. Redfield, whose economy thrives on snowmobilers and cross-country skiers, receives an annual average of 270 inches - more than 22 feet.