Bitterly cold air has pushed into the north-central states where it's helping to create lake-effect snow in places far from the Great Lakes.

The Great Lakes are famous for producing bands of snow in late fall and winter, which sometimes can dump feet of snow at a time. But smaller lakes can give the atmosphere ample moisture to produce snowfall when certain atmospheric conditions are in place.

North Dakota's Lake Sakakawea provided an example of this phenomenon Monday morning when snow flurries were observed on Doppler radar southeast of the lake. The animation above shows this in the blue radar echoes near the Bismarck area, or downwind of the cold air flowing over the lake, about 60 miles northwest of the city.

Weather in your inbox

Forecast Location

Sign Up

By signing up you agree to the Terms & Privacy Policy. Unsubscribe at any time.

Lake-effect snow develops when cold, dry air picks up moisture and heat by passing over a relatively warmer lake. Temperatures around 5,000 feet above ground must be at least 23 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Celsius) colder than the lake temperature for lake-effect snow to develop.

The air temperature near Lake Sakakawea about 5,000 feet above ground was in the single digits below zero Fahrenheit on Monday morning. Water temperatures on the western end of the lake were in the upper 30s Fahrenheit, according to the USGS.

That temperature difference was large enough for lake-effect snow to develop not just on Lake Sakakawea on Monday morning but also on other lakes in the Midwest. Northern Minnesota received lake-effect snow on Monday morning as cold air moved over Lake of the Woods on the U.S.-Canadian border.

These lakes are still free of ice, which is key to the formation of lake-effect snow. In midwinter, smaller lakes in the northern Plains and upper Midwest freeze and block the moisture needed to generate lake-effect snow.

When the smaller lakes do produce snowfall, it's usually just a nuisance. The lakes aren't large enough to produce the prolific snows like those in the Great Lakes snow belts during late fall and winter.

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.