INDIANA — It’s not an official term, but one that I coined locally for us here in West Michigan. “Reverse lake-effect”. Since it almost always seems to be Michigan getting the lake-effect snow, when a northeast wind delivers it to the “other” side of the lake like northwest Indiana, Chicago, or Milwaukee, I consider it reverse lake-effect. That’s what happened Monday night through Tuesday as a northeast/north wind sent a well-defined, narrow band of heavy lake-effect snow across that area.
I mentioned in a post on Sunday that travel to/from Chicago Monday night through Tuesday was not advised. Here’s why. Schererville recorded 10″ of snow. Hammond picked up 16″, East Chicago tallied 18″, and Griffith came in with a whooping 20″…all in about a 12 to 18 hour period. Each one of those cities are in northwest Indiana!
National Weather Service reports suggest at times, two to three inches per hour were falling in some of these locations. The attached image was a snapshot of radar taken around 11:45 AM Tuesday morning when some of the heaviest snow was falling. Perhaps it’s worth noting that the thickest point of the intense snowband was only between 15 and 18 miles wide. Imagine being just outside of the band and receiving little/no snow, and literally a few miles down the road where between one to two feet has fallen.
West Michigan should be picking up on some light system snow Wednesday, but probably only 1″ to 3″. Get more at www.fox17online.com/weather.
