Very rare "Lake Effect Storm" for late summer early fall. A result of this anomalously cool/cold weather spell [View all]

[Cheezoholic]

I posted yesterday about some of the crazy weather the Great lakes and Ohio/Valley have coming up this weekend, especially the wild up to 50 degree daily temperature swings we will be having through most of this week with lows progressing from the 30's to the 40's and 50's by mid week and highs in the 60"s to near 90 by midweek. You've heard of lake effect snow, how about lake effect storms in the late summer?

Here is a very rare example of such storms being caused by a combination of an east propagating very small shortwave low enhancing southerly flow and interacting with very cool land breezes over the still very warm waters of lake Michigan. The contrast of temperature over the lake, as in winter, is causing convection to form on the southern side of most of the lakes.

Think of a super sized version of early morning light fog or mist you may see over a pond or river. And sometimes you can see that light fog spinning in the am! That's what the Marine Warnings are for on the southern side of a few of the lakes as several water spouts have been sighted. Its the exact same thing only on a grand scale

You rarely see convection this strong caused by the lakes in late summer, this is normally a very late fall, winter phenomena involving usually snow. While lake enhanced rain is not all that uncommon it is rarely isolated like this and even more rare causing convective cloud tops up to 30k feet. Very rare indeed!

Just a Saturday morning weather nerd alert lol

Radar over Lake Michigan this morning with special marine warnings posted


Satellite view of some of the convection forming from the cold southerly breeze over the still warm lake waters of Michigan, Huron and Erie