Time-Lapse Video Shows Lake Michigan Evaporating as Temperatures Plunge

A time-lapse video of Lake Michigan as seen from a vantage point in central Chicago, Illinois, shows moisture evaporating from the surface of the body of water to form low-lying clouds that have been dumping snow over the northeast and Great Lakes.

The footage, taken from near the Soldier Field stadium on the western side of Lake Michigan, shows moisture being picked up off the lake and being carried in an easterly direction.

This is the first part of the process that forms lake-effect snow. When a mass of cold air moves over a relatively warm body of water, that heat and moisture rises before being cooled by the cold air to form low-lying clouds.

Those clouds then grow larger and more moisture-laden as they move across the body of water—and as can be seen on the horizon in the video—before producing heavy snowfall downwind of the cold air.

Regions downwind of the Great Lakes have recently been subject to heavy snow due to the effect, with as much as 3 feet falling over parts of western New York that border Lakes Erie and Ontario over the weekend.

The region has already seen bouts of lake-effect snow earlier in the winter, and at the end of December faced another stint of snowfall brought on by an Alberta Clipper system—a cold front that tends to move southeast across the continental U.S. from its namesake Canadian province.

With the arrival of an Arctic blast of cold air over the weekend that brought dangerously cold chills to central states and facilitated winter storms elsewhere—and which meteorologists expect to persist until Tuesday—more lake-effect snow is anticipated.

The National Weather Service (NWS) issued lake-effect snow warnings for western regions of New York through to Thursday evening, predicting accumulations of up to 3 feet in places, making travel very difficult if not impossible.

Advisories are also in place for parts of Michigan and Ohio, where up to 8 and 7 inches of snow, respectively, could fall due to the winter weather phenomenon.

Another surge of Arctic air is set to reach the Plains and Deep South by Thursday into Friday, the NWS said in a forecast, bringing the prospect of ice, biting wind chills and the risk of frostbite on exposed skin in a matter of minutes. It could also mean a continuation of lake-effect snow over areas downwind of the Great Lakes into the coming weekend.