Modeling Lake Effect Snow with an Interactive Lake Model in WRF

The Great Lakes region is of particular interest in numerical modeling of weather systems, particularly during the winter months during which the land-lake contrast can produce snow and enhance existing snowstorms. Because of the available moisture and thermal energy of the surface of the lakes, the presence of the lakes induces “lake effect snow,” and the magnitude and severity of these events can have drastic repercussions on the communities and economies of the Great Lakes region. For our model runs, we focused on a winter storm that occurred over the Great Lakes region from January 14th 1200Z to January 17th 0000Z 2009. Using the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF) version 3.6 with a nested grid structure of 9 km/3 km resolution, we examine the representation of lake effect snow in the model, and how including an interactive 1-D lake model affects the simulation of lake effect snow.