Multi-scale Interactions Influencing Lake-Effect Systems

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Lake-effect snowstorms have large impacts on people and communities in the Great Lakes region, as well as areas beyond the typical lake-effect snowbelts, and there remain several unanswered scientific questions regarding multi-scale interactions that regularly effect these storms. The interactions this research investigates range from understanding how lake-effect storms are influenced by varying jetstream wind patterns to the contribution lake-effect storms have to winter snowfall totals. This research will give valuable insight into complex lake-effect weather systems that are difficult to forecast, as well as the snowfall produced by these storms. This project will benefit the next generation of scientists through a wide range of educational and training activities. The research results will be communicated to the scientific community and public, as well as shared with the National Weather Service Forecast Offices in the Great Lakes region through established connections. The research will provide new understanding of complex interactions that influence mesoscale and convective boundary layer thermodynamics and dynamics in lake-effect system (LES) environments. These interactions span across multiple spatiotemporal scales, including interactions of synoptic-scale systems with mesoscale systems. The scientific objectives of the research are to: (1) understand the interaction of tropospheric short-wave troughs with LES and their impact on LES snowfall, structure, and spatiotemporal evolution, (2) understand the variability in structure and evolution of LES multi-lake connections (MLC) across areas of the upstream lake and intervening land, as well as the influence that the MLC upstream convective boundary layer has on LES over the downstream lake, (3) understand the factors responsible for the development and maintenance of long-distance, inland-extending LES snowbands, as well as their climatological characteristics, and (4) understand the intraseasonal and interannual variability of the LES contribution to total winter snowfall throughout the Great Lakes region, as well as determine the influence that ice cover distribution has on LES snowfall variability. Additionally, this research will result in the most expansive and comprehensive LES database in existence for the Great Lakes which will contain information of LES occurrences across 24 cold seasons.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.