A Rare Type of Snow May Have Fallen This Week in Allegan County

Lake Effect snow sort of feels like a bully. It sits around, dumps a bunch of stuff on us for as long as it wants, then it carries on its merry way.

We’re used to that. But West Michigan didn’t just get more of the usual lake effect snow this week. We may have experienced something much rarer: steam effect snow.

We’re all painfully familiar with lake effect at this point, especially the way one town gets buried while the next one over barely needs a broom. Steam effect snow, though, is a whole different animal that is even more area specific and it doesn’t show up very often.

On rare occasions, the atmosphere lines up just right for steam from local industrial sources, like factories, to actually help create snow. When warm steam rises and runs into air that’s already fully saturated and sitting in the dendritic growth zone, (which is basically the sweet spot where snowflakes form) light snow showers can develop. From there, the wind carries them downstream like a tiny, hyper-localized snow cloud.

That appears to be what happened Wednesday afternoon, particularly around Holland and parts of central Allegan County, according to a social media post from the Michigan Storm Chasers.

Radar showed a narrow band of precipitation that didn’t quite behave like classic lake effect. On one radar image, the precipitation intensity showed up clearly, while another radar product confirmed it was actual snow or rain droplets, not birds, smoke, or random atmospheric clutter. The red and purple colors mean legit moisture, not just noise.

So yes, it’s possible that some of the flurries drifting through were being helped along by factory steam.

The alternative explanation is a very tight, very localized band of lake effect snow that just happened to sit in the same place. Either way, steam effect snow is not something most of us ever notice, even if it happens occasionally. It requires a perfect balance of cold air, moisture, wind direction, and atmospheric layers. Basically, winter showing off.

If you’re in central Allegan County and actually saw or felt those flurries hit the ground Wednesday afternoon, you’re not alone in wondering what was going on. West Michigan winter found yet another way to surprise us. At this point, it feels personal.