Lake-effect snow accounts for over one-half of the annual snowfall total in many lakeshore communities of the Great Lakes. A multitude of factors including local (coastal) geography, wind velocity, atmospheric stability, and lake-air temperature

Observations of lake-effect storms that occur over the Great Lakes region during late autumn and winter indicate a high sensitivity to ambient wind speed and direction. In this paper, a twodimensional version of the Penn State University/National Center for Atmospheric Research (PSU/ NCAR) model is used to investigate the wind speed effects on lake-effect snowstorms that occur over the Great Lakes region. Theoretical initial conditions for stability, relative humidity, wind velocity, and lake/land temperature distribution are specified. Nine different experiments are performed using wind speeds of U = 0, 2, 4 , . . . , 16 m s -1. The perturbation wind, temperature, and moisture fields for each experiment after 36 h of simulation are compared. It is determined that moderate (4-6m s -1) wind speeds result in maximum precipitation (snowfall) on the lee shore of the model lake. Weak wind speeds (0 ~< U < 4 m s 1) yield significantly higher snowfall amounts over the lake along with a spatially concentrated and intense response. Strong wind speeds (6 < U ~< 16 m s -1) yield very little, if any, significant snowfall, although significant increases in cloudiness, temperature, and perturbation wind speed occur hundreds of kilometers downwind from the lake.