doesnt make any sense to me. here in rochester we always say "man it looks like alaska" but come to find out we have wayy more snowfall than them
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more moisture to be condensed out of the air
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Without knowing anything about Alaska or the Great Lakes of the USA/Canada, I can tell you this:
Both poles are places of intense cold. Cold air sinks. As it does, it warms up by the adiabatic effect of a greater pressure under. This evaporates the moisture in the clouds and the weather is typical of a high pressure: Clear sky and little or no wind.
The Great Lakes are south of the polar front. That front that is the separation between polar dry but cold air, and temperate moist but mild air, is where the latter climbs slowly over the former. As it does, it decreases the atmospheric pressure and the rising air, this time cooling down by the opposite adiabatic effect, cools down and moisture condenses, causing precipitations of rain or snow.
Actually, if it wasn't for all that ice and snow, both poles would be deserts, pretty much like the Sahara. The latter is also on two belts of high pressures, at roughly latitudes 30 N and 30 S, where the warm air rising between the tropics, comes down. This is also where you find most deserts on earth.
And that is why Alaska (or north Norway, where I live) has less precipitations than somewhere more south, closer to the mid-latitudes low pressures.
Both poles are places of intense cold. Cold air sinks. As it does, it warms up by the adiabatic effect of a greater pressure under. This evaporates the moisture in the clouds and the weather is typical of a high pressure: Clear sky and little or no wind.
The Great Lakes are south of the polar front. That front that is the separation between polar dry but cold air, and temperate moist but mild air, is where the latter climbs slowly over the former. As it does, it decreases the atmospheric pressure and the rising air, this time cooling down by the opposite adiabatic effect, cools down and moisture condenses, causing precipitations of rain or snow.
Actually, if it wasn't for all that ice and snow, both poles would be deserts, pretty much like the Sahara. The latter is also on two belts of high pressures, at roughly latitudes 30 N and 30 S, where the warm air rising between the tropics, comes down. This is also where you find most deserts on earth.
And that is why Alaska (or north Norway, where I live) has less precipitations than somewhere more south, closer to the mid-latitudes low pressures.