Characteristics of Shore-Parallel Lake-Effect Snowbands off of Lake Ontario

Lake effect snowbands frequently eminate from the Lake Ontario during the cold season, when a polar air mass travels over the relatively warm water. There has been a substantial amount of research into the synoptic-scale conditions that best support the formation of lake-effect snow bands. However, there has been less work that examines the characteristics of the shore-parallel lake-effect bands that form off of Lake Ontario. Thus, the purpose of this presentation is to document these various characteristics such as length of the bands, orientation of the bands, and point on the lake shore that the band originates. Archived composite radar data was used to complete a seven-year (2012/13–2018/19) cold-season (October–March) climatology of shore-parallel bands off of Lake Ontario. It was found that these bands most typically originate from the eastern shore of Lake Ontario, as might be expected. However, a substantial number of these bands also form along the southeastern shore of the lake. Shore-parallel bands were present for 3500 total hours over the climatology and had their end point in widely varying locations across New York and the northeast. This data was utilized to plot spatial density maps of shore-parallel band locations over the entire 7-year climatology that was examined.