"Lake.effect storms" are well known among weather forecasters. During late autumn and early winter when cold air from Canada flows over the Great Lakes, which are still relatively warm, extensive cloudiness and snow showers sometimes occur on the lee side of the lakes. Previous work has shown that these storms generally have a shallow vertical structure and frequently develop without any upper.level dynamical forcing. The sensible heat flux from the lakes and the surface friction collectively, so thought, play a role. However, are these storms a forced phenomenon? Is there any instability mechanism at work? Using a sophisticated primitive equation model for numerical simulations and a nonlinear spectral model for examining the physics selectively, Professors Shirer and Fritsch will address these questions.
