Check Out This Lesson: Lake Effect Snow

CGLL.org is loaded with great searchable Great Lakes and ocean lessons for your classroom. Now that the weather in the north is turning frightful, it is time to teach about:

Lake Effect Snow

The Great Lakes create unique weather patterns. One of those weather patterns is lake effect snow. Lake effect snowstorms occur in only three places in the world: the Great Lakes, the east shore of Hudson Bay and along the west coasts of the Japanese islands of Honshu and Hokkaido. While people in the snow belt regions have learned to adapt, living near the lakes and experiencing lake effect snow still affects the economy and culture in significant ways. For example, winter sports like skiing and snowmobiling are major industries in some snow areas. This lesson explores how the Great Lakes influence lake effect snow, other factors that contribute to it and ways of reading weather conditions to forecast lake effect storms.

Objectives:

• Describe the factors that create lake effect snow.
• Describe how differences in lake and air temperature relate to lake effect snow.
• Describe weather conditions associated with the movement of frontal boundaries across the Great Lakes region.
• Describe how hills and highlands help form clouds and precipitation.
• Describe how cities and industrial areas are related to lake effect snow.

Try out the curriculum search tool to find more great stuff (on the home page or at cgll.org/curriculum).