"That's Just Storm Snow"

Many people today were checking out the online weather sites that are showing a large winter storm coming our way out of the Midwest. They seemed a little worried that this system was going to produce a lot of snow. Though the radar sites did show a rather large storm heading our way, I just had to explain to them "this is nothing to worry about, it's just storm snow."

Living on the leeward side of Lake Erie we are very used to snow around here. Every winter we get a thing called "Lake Effect Snow", which is caused by the winds coming over the lake, picking up moisture, and then dumping it all over us in the form of large frozen white crystals.

Most people in the country require a storm to come through their area in order to get any winter precipitation, but for us it can happen almost anytime. All we need to get a good pelting of the white stuff is, a good north wind, an unfrozen lake, and icy cold temperatures, all of which we've had in abundance lately.

Up until three weeks ago winter had hardly even reared it's ugly head around here, and to tell you the truth most of us were quite enjoying it. Lake Erie, which is normally covered with a thick layer of ice before the end of December, hadn't even frozen over. We were beginning to think that we were going to have one of those rare "winters without a winter", but our lake can be a cruel and fickle mistress.

You see we get most of our lake Effect Snow before the lake freezes over. Once we get a good six inches of ice covering that great body of water out there, it becomes much more difficult for the wind to draw the moisture out of the lake.

So there we were happily enjoying the balmy weather but in the back of our minds we knew that without that ice covering, we were probably living on borrowed time. I guess our time finally ran out.

Three weeks ago the jet stream switched, the temperatures plummeted down into the single digits, and the wind shifted around to the north and that's when the beating began.

We have received 50 inches of snow in the last three weeks bringing us from well below our average to finally surpassing it this week. That 50 inches is also the official amount, measured at the airport, which is not in our traditional snow belt, some areas around here have received three times that.

I am fortunate to live in the northwest part of the county which gets a lot less snow than the southeast corner, the further you travel east around the lake, the worse it gets.

For three weeks now we have been getting pounded relentlessly with snow while some of the surrounding areas have had absolutely nothing. While other areas were enjoying sunshine, we had nothing but clouds and more snow. During that time it snowed day and night, barely ever taking a break, and that is the thing with Lake Effect Snow in this area, it doesn't require a storm front to come through in order to start falling. It can just start falling and continue to fall for weeks without giving us any kind of a break.

True I've seen far worse winters having lived here my whole life, I've seen winters that were much more frigid and winters with vastly greater amounts of snow, but I can't think of a winter that has been any more cruel than this one has been. I think we were all starting to have thoughts of spring and that maybe... just maybe... we were going to get away without any kind of a real winter at all this year, but it was nothing more than "the great god of the lake" playing a nasty little joke on us.

So now when people pull up the radar site and show me the "big storm" that is about to smash into us, all I can say to them is "that's just storm snow, at least it isn't Lake Effect, that little storm will pass through in a day or two"...