Observations of Lake-Breeze Events During the Toronto 2015 Pan-American Games

Abstract

Enhanced meteorological observations were made during the 2015 Pan and Parapan American Games in Toronto in order to measure the vertical and horizontal structure of lake-breeze events. Two scanning Doppler lidars (one fixed and one mobile), a C-band radar, and a network including 53 surface meteorological stations (mesonet) provided pressure, temperature, humidity, and wind speed and direction measurements over Lake Ontario and urban areas. These observations captured the full evolution (prior, during, and after) of 27 lake-breeze events (73% of observation days) in order to characterize the convective and dynamic processes driving lake breezes at the local scale and mesoscale. The dominant signal of a passing lake-breeze front (LBF) was an increase in dew-point temperature of $$2.3 \pm 0.3 \,^{\circ }\hbox {C}$$ , coinciding with a $$180^{\circ }$$ shift in wind direction and a decrease in air temperature of $$2.1 \pm 0.2 \,^{\circ }\hbox {C}$$ . Doppler lidar observations over the lake detected lake breezes 1 hour (on average) before detection by radar and mesonet. On days with the synoptic flow in the offshore direction, the lidars observed wedge-shaped LBFs with shallow depths, which inhibited the radar’s ability to detect the lake breeze. The LBF’s ground speed and inland penetration distance were found to be well-correlated ( $$r = 0.78$$ ), with larger inland penetration distances occurring on days with non-opposing (non-offshore) synoptic flow. The observed enhanced vertical motion $$({>} 1\hbox { m s}^{-1})$$ at the LBF, observed by the lidar on 54% of lake-breeze days, was greater (at times $${>} 2.5\hbox { m s}^{-1}$$ ) than that observed in previous studies and longer-lasting over the lake than over land. The weaker and less pronounced lake-breeze structure over land is illustrated in two case studies highlighting the lifetime of the lake-breeze circulation and the impact of propagation distance on lake-breeze intensity.