Meteorology - Lake Effect Snow

Proposed research : Lake effect snow in areas east of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie

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Abstract

The effect of lake effect snowfall has increasing been felt by residents of cities east side of Lakes Ontario and Lake Erie . Areas surrounding these great lakes can attest to the fact that amount of snowfall each year increases causing devastating damages to the livelihood of city residents in Buffalo , Rochester Watertown and Syracuse . These effects are felt more by these areas since they lie on

br the leeward sides . During winter days , the snow surface can raise to as high as 1200cm . In such extreme cases , recreational activities schooling agriculture and other economic activities have been profoundly incapacitated (Rosenfeld , 2000 . The major explanation that has been underpinned to increased lake effect snowfall is global warming caused by emissions of green gases . This makes a summary of the proposed project which is an analysis of the lake effect snowfall in cities east side of lakes Ontario and lake Erie , by outlining the various data and methodology 's , interpretation tools and reasons why the steps will be crucial to achieving objectives of this proposed research

Introduction . The scientific explanation behind snowfall production is a clearly understood at least to most scientists however , the lake effect snow that happens over great lakes in the USA remains a mystery However "Numerous studies have found a strong correlation between the strength of lake-effect snow and the degree to which the wind changes direction with height in the lower atmosphere . Thus , the minimizations of directional wind `shear` is considered to be an excellent predictor of LES snowfall rates and intensity . In general , when we think about wind direction and lake-effect snow , the first thing that comes to mind is fetch and how it affects lake-effect snow . Assuming that there is sufficient number of cases , one may examine how other variables affect lake-effect snow when fetch remains the same . An example is studying how wind speed affects snowfall for a given fetch . The purpose of this project is to establish the extent of lake effect snow in Lake Erie and Ontario and its effect to Metropoliation Buffalo and Rochester along with the eastern cities on the eastern end of Lake Ontario

Background study

The scientific explanations advanced about lake effect snow is cold air masses that originate from Canada have low water content which is warmed up and moistened as it passes over the Great lakes thereby creating lower atmospheric instability and upward motion . As a result , friction between the down winds land surfaces , upslope flow of winds cause boundary layer turbulence , and hence the LES (Dewey 1979 . Lake effect snow is used to describe snowfall that occurs during the winter months and falls due to the mixture of cold air and warm air from lakes as winds cross over water masses of the great lakes (Niziol , 1987 ) The manifestation of this contact between cold occurs in localized manner This is because the...