I have a question regarding southern Ontario

When does the snow from the lake effect begin to melt away? I was planning to come there on an exploratory to examine the business climate around March.

snow? who knew.

...

for the most part due to prevailing Northwesternly winds. So areas like Ottawa are not generally affected. Toronto would sometimes see the right winds off of Lake Huron also. Just beware if you plan to travel at all during the winter months that traveling the NYS Thruway near Buffalo and Rt. 81 north of Syracuse, south of Watertown can be a white-knuckle experience.

The north wind picks up moisture from Lake Huron and/or Georgian Bay, then carries it to the higher elevations of Northeast Ohio, where "orographic" (=due to altitude) precipitation occurs. It appears to carry the water vapor right over southern Ontario. Where I live is the snowiest place this far south in the United States. (Which is a great reason to take up cross country skiing).

BTW, Nice technical explanation, LosinIt.

Lake effect snow is a non issue for most of Southern Ontario... Not to say there won't be snow in March, but it's NOTHING like Buffalo... :wow:

Buffalo was the poster child for the lake effect.

Or Pulaski, or the famed Barnes Corners on the Tug Hill Plateau that sits just off the end of Lake Ontario. They got BLASTED last year. Buffalo gets more press because it has a much higher population, but the area north of Syracuse gets it bad too.

There would be some from lake Huron north and east of Sarnia following the contour of the lake and bay shore inland say ten to fifty miles (just a guess). But, the melting probably isn't important and only a few days at most different for the same latitiude. In Michigan's Upper Peninsula the snow melts by August, opposed to March and April melts in the southern lower peninsula.

East of Woodstock on the 401. Do *not* drive it if any serious amount of snow is forecast. And even if the snow is light, watch out for the black ice. Seriously.

I spent Christmas Eve, from about 9 pm to about 2 am, with several hundred other people in the service centre in the snow belt there some years ago. My travelling companion and I were in his commercial van, and we'd picked up a family whose car had gone off the road into the ditch, and just about froze to death in the extremely sub-zero (Celsius) wind on the highway doing it. We also picked up half of a retired couple from their car in the median; the husband insisted on staying with his car, and the wife spent two hours pretty much in terror at the service centre until he was towed out and drove in. People die in weather like that without too much trouble.

The 401 between London and Windsor can also be treacherous of course, in that case usually because of fog -- the road itself is straight and flat.

http://www.msc-smc.ec.gc.ca/media/top10/1999_e.html

On the Friday before Labour Day, dense early-morning fog enveloped sections of Highway #401 near Windsor, contributing to one of the worst road disasters in Canadian history.  The horrific accident killed eight people and injured thirty-three others.  In all, the chain-reaction pileup destroyed 82 vehicles, many of them fused together in the intense heat. Just moments before the crash, visibility was reduced to about a metre by the sudden occurrence of dense fog just after sunrise.

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/LondonFreePress/News/2004/09/03/613960.html

A farmer and lawyer who lives along the 401, Kirk Walstedt is walking from his house to a pen to feed his peacocks when he hears a crash, then another and another.

Walstedt runs to his pickup and drives toward the highway, approaching a fog bank so thick and low it looks like a white tunnel. Above the fog, not much higher than the roofline of a tractor-trailer, black plumes of smoke rise.

He hears them before he sees them, people screaming.

"It looked like the worst airline disaster you ever saw."

Farmer Dave Phillips is eating breakfast at 8 a.m. when he hears what sounds like thunder.

When the sounds continue, Phillips walks up an overpass above the 401. Bright orange flames leap above a fog bank. He runs toward the wreckage.

"It was like seeing a movie, a crazy war scene. Mangled cars and people screaming," he says.

Anyhow, March varies widely. In early-spring or low-snow years, the snow will be pretty much gone. In late-spring or heavy-snow years, there will still be snow on the ground, but probably not much falling. This weather site says:

http://collections.ic.gc.ca/stlauren/environ/en_clima.htm

When the mean daily temperature goes above 0ºC, spring has arrived. In southern Ontario this happens in early March. It comes later on in the same month in Quebec, depending on where one is located. For example, Quebec City typically receives more snowfall than rainfall in March whereas the reverse is the case in Montreal. The mean daily temperature hovers near the zero mark in the entire region in March. By April it increases between 3 and 6 degrees Celsius, and in May the region's average is above 10ºC. The days begin to get longer also. From March, April to May, the average amount of sunshine in a day goes from five, six to seven hours. Furthermore, the old saying "April showers bring May flowers" doesn't apply in the region. Surprisingly, April is one of the driest months of the year. High wind speeds and thunderstorms are also prevalent.

to post just as you did iverglas! My Brother lives in Woodstock and I used to live in Elmira. We made frequent trips also from Elmira to Mitchell, not a happy experience in the dead of winter. Having been a long distance truck driver for many years I can tell you, the 401 West of Kitchener / Waterloo ALL the way to Windsor is treacherous. Thanks for all the info you put out.


auntAgonist

It's out of the fog/sleet belt other posters are worrying about. The city's infrastructure is in good shape due to tourist dollars but they'd still welcome industry.

Also think St. Catharines or Hamilton.

What kind of business?