Is My Area Special?

Question

I live about 25-30 miles from lake michigan in northern illinois. A little northwest of chicago. If you go about another 25 miles west, you get into an area that always has really bad storms during the spring and summer. However, the area i live in, basically everything within about 50 miles of lake michigan, rarely has problems. There are almost never tornado watches or warnings, we get storms but they usually aren't that bad. But a little bit west of here has a ton of devastating storms every year.

Do the lake do something to moderate the weather in my area or is it just coincidence that we don't usually have problems?

Answer 1

All storms are "heat engines" and are powered by the release of heat due to water vapor condensing in the atmosphere.  Lake Michigan is a very large body of water that is relatively cool during the storm season.  Land on the other hand heats up very quickly during the summer months.  The sun heats the ground which heats the air directly above it.  This hot air rises and produces storms when conditions are right.  As this storm moves over the cool waters of the lake, a lot of the heat energy is dissipated out of the atmosphere, and things settle down.  During the winter time, you should notice a reversal of this principle.  You should expect to receive more snow cause the water is warmer than the land and therefore causes the release of more energy from the atmosphere:  "Lake Effect Snow."