Lake Effect narrowly misses our house

That is not a good thing. The two dozen drivers involved in pileups on a short stretch of I-69 about 20 miles SSW of Fort Wayne this afternoon probably wished the band of snow had been a few more miles to the east as well. As it was, from just east of downtown to about thirty miles west of Fort Wayne, bands of occasionally intense lake effect snow quickly dumped an inch of fluffy powder several times today. The snow conveyor stretched from Lake Michigan to about as far south as Bluffton, IN. Indeed, it was the sudden southern edge of that intense snow that caught northbound motorists off guard. Then, after nearly a dozen vehicles had piled up in multiple crashes in the northbound lanes, southbound rubber-neckers on the slick roads set off another series of crashes involving another dozen vehicles.

At home, we had a dusting overnight (sometime between 0100 and 0700) and then just caught the eastern edge of that conveyor belt of snow, getting perhaps a ½" of powder. At work, there was nearly an inch on the ground when I arrived around 0900 this morning, and then another couple of inches came from two rounds of snow, late morning through noontime and then from about 1500 to 1700 as the conveyor belt slowly swayed east-west throughout the day. I haven't seen official reports, but judging from the radar today, Rochester IN is probably as far west as the western edge of the snow belt swung.

Using NOAA’s handy Water Equivalent of Snowfall chart, we probably had about 0.03" moisture content here, while on the west side of Fort Wayne (at work) they had between 0.13--0.20".

By the way, parts of southwestern Michigan received up to 9" of lake effect snow. Sigh, always a bridesmaid!

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awc 2006-12-08 00:19:08