What is the difference between lake effect snow and a blizzard?

Seriously they seem almost the same but how are they different? And I see both being born and raised in norther Ohio and now living in Michianna!|||"Lake effect snow" and "blizzard" are typical American but, as a Norwegian who reads a lot, I'll explain the difference :-)





Blizzard is a word that is used in the US as a combination of snow and wind. It can happen anywhere.





Lake effect snow comes from the Great Lakes and most probably from Lake Michigan. When it is very cold and the wind blows from the lake, the relatively milder and very moist air comes over land, cools down and falls as snow. In other words, it also requires wind and it also manifests itself as snow but it only happens somewhere where the wind blows from a large body of water like Lake Michigan. In international meteorology terms that is called a advective precipitation but ... your terminology sounds better! :-)


Advection, actually, means: following the ground. Usually, precipitations (rain or snow) come from convection (rising air). Advection is a horizontal movement.|||Lake effect snow is a specific weather effect that occurs downwind of a large lake, when a storm picks up lake moisture and deposits it in the form of additional snow.


A blizzard is just any heavy snowstorm, you can have a blizzard with no lakes anywhere nearby.


So a moderate storm can get enhanced into a blizzard thanks to lake effect. A blizzard in western Colorado isn't due to lake effect though.|||The previous post had a very good answer. I would just like to add that technically a blizzard is defined by winds exceeding 30 miles per hour .