When very cold air from Canada sweeps across the unfrozen Great Lakes, the Lake Effect snow machine cranks up.
In the case of a Buffalo suburb just before Thanksgiving 2022, nearly seven feet of snow shut everything down. Lake Effect snow begins with warm air rising off the Great Lakes, and then cooling and condensing into clouds and snow in the sky.
A strong northwest wind then moves bitterly cold air across the lakes, generates massive amounts of snow and then pushes to area just southeast of the Great Lakes.
In the winter, when the Great Lakes freeze over, the Lake Effect snow machine shuts off until the lakes thaw in the spring and round two generates. If it is a very mild winter and the Great Lakes don’t freeze, which can happen some years, Lake Effect snow can actually happen all winter long every time there’s an arctic blast and the winds pick up.
Get South Florida local news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC South Florida newsletters.
