Q&A: I-94 and Lake Effect Snow

First question, do any of your models include potential for lake effect snow, for example, on I-94 across northern Indiana and southwest Michigan. That’s an excellent question and the fact that we’re seeing this major pattern change, that is one part of that.

So as we see Arctic air moving across all of the Great Lakes that turns on the lake snow machine in those favorite areas and one of those areas is going to be northern Indiana and southwest Michigan. So when we begin to see Arctic air moving across that zone, that will be on Sunday and on Monday and further east. All the favorite lake areas of lake snow for example in and around the Cleveland area, in and around Buffalo, upstate New York, all of those favorite lakes snow areas. We’re going to in a big way turn on the lake snow machine across those areas. It’s not like you’re going to have big snows every day, but anytime there’s a component off the lake and Arctic air is flowing across the region you are going to have really big snows across the region in that Northern Indiana southwest Michigan is one of the spots that will be in periodic major heavy snow as we go through, not only the next week or so, but extending for many weeks into the early portion of next month.

Just want to add a note on that. The mere fact that we’ve been on the warm side over the past month or so means that the Great Lakes are mainly open and they’re warmer than they should be at this stage of the game. That increases the snow potential in those lake effect areas. And yeah, in those zones, that will be a major item here of note. Not only in the next week, but extending many weeks into next month.