From flooding downpours to blinding snow drifts, what if all this lake-effect rain were snow?
An intense band of lake-effect rain crashed onshore Wednesday night, dumping more than three inches of rain across parts of Lake, Geauga, and Ashtabula counties. These areas are synonymous with being in the "snow belt" when lake-effect falls in the form of blinding bursts of heavy snow. This time around, with temperatures in the 40s and low 50s, it was mostly rain (and some graupel!) instead of snow. How much snow could this amount of rainfall produce?
A simplified conversion involves a 10-to-1 ratio, where every 1 inch of liquid (rain) would equate to 10 inches of snow. This 10:1 ratio can be higher (like 15:1 or 20:1) if the snow is super fluffy, or lower (5:1 or 8:1) if the snow is wet and cement-like. For this exercise, the ratio will be kept at an average of 10:1.
In just 12 hours, a CocoRaHS station just west of downtown Madison reported 4.37 inches of rain. Multiply that number by 10, and it becomes 43.7 inches of snow! The heart of a classic lake-effect snow band typically drops one to two inches of snow per hour, but in Madison's case, it would be over three inches per hour! That is quite extreme, but it is not unheard of...
For perspective, remember just last November. Right after Thanksgiving, a monster lake-effect machine set up across Ashtabula County, where some areas saw over *60* inches of snow. Saybrook was the big (official) winner, with a nearly 64-inch measurement. The atmosphere does not hold as much moisture at colder temperatures, but under the right atmospheric conditions and warm Lake Erie water temperatures, a dynamic setup could yield similar results if this week's rain were to fall as snow, later in November.
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