[grania]

Doesn't lake effect snow depend on the Great Lakes not being frozen? Thus, the warm autumn did contribute to massive snow when the temp cooled down and a front moved through. But now, it has gotten massively cold and the Great Lakes should freeze. That should cut off the fuel for humongous lake effect snowstorms after a few more days of frigid cold.

What we're getting now is certainly not global warming. It's weird weather variations. The trees had leaves around here until the week after Thanksgiving! (metro Cleveland)

[Flick Lives]

Doesn’t lake effect snow depend on the Great Lakes not being frozen?

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Interesting question got me to looking on the internet for an answer. Looks like once frozen, lake effect snow is reduced. A storm can’t pull in additional moisture from the frozen surface to contribute to the snowfall. The temperature differential between the land and the lake is also reduced once the surface is frozen, so you no longer have a relatively warmer front running into colder land triggering precipitation.

https://www.almanac.com/blog/weather-blog/frozen-great-lake-story