How Far South Ever?

[whitedust]

I don't know if you can answer this but I'll give it a shot. How far South in WI has LES fallen in great quantities like 1 foot or more. Specifically LES caused by a cold wave & high winds over Lake Superior. I have seen Watersmeet, Lando & Phelps get hammered by LES but never seen Eagle River, WI receive much LES & Eagle River,Wi just a bit further South than those locations. Also along UP trail 8 I have noticed Bruce Crossing seems to be in a LES snow hole too. Bergland gets a bunch & Kenton & Sidnaw always more than Bruce Crossing seems odd to me... Why? Is there more triggers needed than just cold wind over warm lake water to deliver big LES? Current local Phelps forecast is for mid 20s all next week with show showers 24/7 & I was wondering if maybe we could get a LES dumping as always happens early season if it is going to happen at all. Thanks in advance for answers & if my question is too general I'll understand you are a busy guy. Also thanks for creating such a great website!!

 

[jd]

Good question.

Boy, a foot or more huh? I was going to answer maybe on a line from about Manitowish Waters to somewhere between Lando and Watersmeet, but you talk about Lando and Phelps getting hammered, so that caught me by surprise. So I would have to say that the Lando-Phelps area would be about as far south as I can imagine the heavy LES reaching and even further south than I would have thought.

I can't say for sure why Bruce Crossing seems to get less than places like Kenton and Sidnaw, other than perhaps Kenton and Sidnaw are higher in elevation and that just squeezes out the last bit of moisture from the LES clouds. Any LES hitting Bruce also has to travel over the Norwitch bluffs, which might suck most of the moisture out, but Kenton and Sidnaw also are down wind from the higher terrain around Twin Lakes. So it is a bit of a mystery. Bergland is actually closer to the lake than Bruce is, so that would explain why they do better than Bruce.

I know back in about 2001, I was on my way back from southern WI visiting for Christmas and encountered LES snow in Merrill. It was just flurries, but LES none the less. Got to Rhinelander and it was snowing hard enough to accumulate a bit. Got to Eagle River and they had around 4-5" of LES and it was coming down even harder. I began to worry about what the heck I was driving into. The LES kept intensifying as I drove north and by the time I reached Mass City, I could barely see past my hood (no joke). I was driving about 5 miles per hour and wondering if I should just turn around and beg to stay with friends that own Club 45 in Conover, as things get pretty lonely between Mass and Twin Lakes. Just then, I saw a car coming from the other direction on 26, so I figured things must be better up the road and decided to press on. It was coming down so hard though (4-6"/hr) and there was already about 6-8" on the road that if it did not lighten up soon, the snow would be too deep for me to continue on and I would be snowbound in my vehicle with Burt and Baileys. As luck would have it, the snows did lighten up around the Firesteel Rivers and I made it home, but it was a close one!

-John

 

[whitedust]

Riding the same trails for years for the entire winter season you can get a good feel for the different depths of LES from town to town. Generally I agree there is a clear line right at Lando & North for the deeper LES then drops off around Bruce Crossing then just keeps getting deeper & deeper on Trail 3 North. Seems in the winter it snows a little everyday in Mass City Greenland area at least when I'm there. Going South Lando, funny, right at the WI border there is most definitely a LES snowfall line then there is a secondary line at Conover not much South of there & goes East about 25 miles then drops off dramatically to nil. When traveling North of Route 70 toward Phelps about 3 miles North of 70 you can see the fresh LES snow in the hardwood trees nothing South of there though again nil. Last week it snowed everyday in Phelps but accumulation only about 2 inches for the week. I was hoping we would get a shot of some decent LES this week as no system snows seem to be headed this way in the near future. Buffalo seems to have epic LES episodes every year. Does Buffalo have more blizzard LES than the UP or just more people & so more news coverage of their events?

 

[skidoodragon]

Dave and Jen rock! Do you know them from CHI. Only 1 mile from cabin, never mis a stop.

 

[jd]

whitedust-

The east ends of Lakes Erie and Ontario are prone to infrequent, but very heavy dumps of LES. When the winds are aligned with the long axis of these lakes (WSW), then land breezes form and will cause a dominate band to develop. Snowfall rates under these dominate bands can be 4-6"/hr and can result in feet of snow accumulating in a very short time. Add a big change in elevation to the equation as is seen at the east end of L. Ontario (Tug Hill Plateau) and the snows can be even larger. I have seen 2, 3 and 4 foot dumps happen there and a huge one hit back about 10 years ago, giving some locales on the hill over 7 feet of snow in less than 24 hours.

Of course Buffalo is a rather large metro area and when it comes to reporting weather events, the only ones that seem to matter to the media are those that impact humans and lots of them, not if the weather event is extreme on it's own merits.

skidoodragon-

I went to high school with Dave. Super great folks. I have not been down there to see them in several years. We are always coming or going between here and southern WI when we pass through Conover and just need to keep moving along (especially with Grace). I would love for them to set up a webcam overlooking the lake, would make for some great snow info and a pretty view.

Tell them I said hi next time you are in!

-John

 

[xcr440]

Not in great quantities, but when I had a cabin 15 miles north of Winter, WI, it was very clear that from there north, the snow depths always got deeper. It was my impression, based on 10 years of living there off and on, that is where the edge of the consistent Lake Effect Snows would stop. From my place there through Clam Lake and north, the snow depths were always more and more the further north you go.

 

[whitedust]

Thanks John for LES details. My exact location is Spectacle Lake about 9 miles SE of Phelps. We picked up about 3" of very fluffy LES last night & more expected today. Seems like we are running about inch less than Mrs. Runningbear in Paulding, MI.