As Magnetic North Drifts

Posted On January 15, 2025

Could the earth’s shifting magnetic poles impact lake effect snow patterns?

Let me be crystal clear. This piece is not about climate change or global warming. Nor is it in any way, shape, or form an attempt to deflect blame for their escalating impact from the true culprits. This is simply a localized long term lake effect weather question being asked by a lifelong north country denizen.

I don’t know whether other folks out there realize it or not, but our earth’s north and south poles are on a continued course of gradual shift. Apparently, according to scientists trained to study and track such matters, what we know and depend on as magnetic north is, degree by degree, on a slow drift towards Siberia.

It appears this is not a new thing. From my cursory layman’s understanding, folks far smarter than me have been measuring and studying such magnetic pole shifts and movements since the onset of mankind’s millennium. Somehow, scientists have even figured out that at various points in time in our planet’s past, the magnetic poles have actually reversed, with the north pole moving south and the south pole vice versa. What a worldwide calamity THAT must have caused! Can we even imagine that happening now?!? Everything on earth’s grid would immediately be thrown into turmoil, with floundering flotillas of beached whales and boats, a complete cell phone blackout, worldwide electric grid meltdown, and penguins in Florida!

Now, I’m not advocating the notion that it’s time to batten down the hatches, or that such catastrophe is going to impact earth the day after tomorrow. Though I have seen numerous studies that, based on the timeline of past such occurrence, seem to loosely suggest that another such complete pole reversal could potentially happen within the next eon. Or two. The scientific timelines on that are somewhat less than exact.

And to answer the naysaying sceptics out there; no, I am not a professionally trained meteorologist. Nor do I possess any degrees qualifying me as a scientist. I don’t have any empirical data. I have not conducted one single study. I’m in no way shape or form a climate change or global warming denier. I’m simply a lifelong north country boy with a vested interest in asking one not so simple question:

“Could the earth’s shifting magnetic poles impact lake effect snow patterns?”

From my cursory understanding of what I have read, the general consensus amongst experts seems to be that the earth’s current magnetic poles shifts do not impact WEATHER. However, and this is what caught my attention and led me to the question, the same scientific experts seem to agree that our planet’s magnetic pole shifts do impact WIND.

Now, far be it from me to suggest to those experts that wind and weather are not separable entities, but instead two intertwined parts of one whole, but as any north country veteran living anywhere near any Great Lakes shore knows, as blow the winds, so blow the snows. Just ask folks living around Buffalo, New York, ANYWHERE in Oswego County, near my home here in Watertown, or up along the Tug Hill Plateau. Everyone making their home in any one of these areas well knows, when the TV weatherman utters the words “lake effect snow” and attempts to predict the trajectory of incoming snow bands, where those bands decide to make landfall and dump snow depends largely on wind directions, which frequently vary unpredictably, or unexpectedly wobble.

This winter offers a prime example. Some areas, like the aforementioned Buffalo, Oswego County, and the infamous “Tug”, have been hammered. So too have some areas south and west of them not generally accustomed to getting such extreme lake effect snow volumes. By contrast, here at our home just off Lake Ontario’s easternmost shores, aside from one three-foot lake effect snow dump in early December that broke my snowblower, causing me to invest in another, (I covered THAT story in “Lake Effect Howl”) we’ve been by and large spared so far (knock on wood).

Just two winters ago, our local lake effect story was different. We here on the east end of the lake got consistently hammered with snow from mid-November ’til well into April. Several of those lake effect snowstorm dumps were measured in feet. I covered THAT winter in one of my most widely read blog stories of all time, a piece titled “Lake Effect Life”. I invite folks who have not yet done so to read it.

Think about it for a moment. It only takes the slightest wobble in wind direction to change who ends up dead center in the lake effect bulls eye. A slight wobble north, and Watertown gets slammed, a slight directional shift southward, and Oswego County gets rammed. If magnetic pole shifts do indeed impact winds, then it only stands to reason that over time even minute pole shifts could alter trends and patterns of where the heaviest lake snow drifts accumulate. Imagine a scenario in which the heaviest Lake Ontario snows routinely fell not on the Tug Hill Plateau but on the villages & villes just southwest of Syracuse!

However, at this point in time, and for the remainder of my planet earth time at least, I concede there is not enough of a timeline to effectively correlate the interrelationship of lake effect snow bands, shifting wind patterns, and magnetic pole drift to develop any credible future lake effect snowfall pattern projections. Thus, the answer to my question remains nothing more than a speculative shot at a moving target.

In the meantime, as I continue pondering shifting magnetic pole questions, I’ve added a new weapon to my lake effect snow fighting arsenal. This year I’ve started using my leaf blower to clear snow from my vehicles, sidewalks, porches and decks. I’ve nicknamed it my “Snow gun”.

It won’t move any depth of snow or the heavy, wet stuff, but it works like a charm on accumulating light fluff!

Now some folks might say, “Why even bother with that bit of snow?”

Well, I’ve found that blowing snow from my vehicles frees me from the arduous task of scraping frozen snow and ice from windshields & windows. Keeping those minor accumulations off of my porches and walks has also helped prevent slippery ice patches that build up from winter’s ongoing freeze-thaw cycle. It’s fast, efficient and easy. I’ve enjoyed it so much that I even went out and invested in a second battery and charger so that now I have enough juice to do everything at once. I highly recommend it to anyone who’s got a leaf blower in their arsenal.

In the meantime, as magnetic north slowly drifts towards Siberia, I continue to wonder:

Is magnetic pole drift impacting wind driven snow patterns?

Or are we simply engaged in an endless game of lake effect Russian Roulette?

Either way, I remain fully armed.

And just a little bit dangerous.

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Until Our Trails Cross Again:

ADKO