Why is the snow in Yantai often called "snow nest"?

My university is in Yantai. The snow in Yantai left a deep impression on me, because such heavy snow is not common in my hometown. In Yantai, there are several heavy snows almost every year. The students had snowball fights and made snowmen. They had a good time. I remember a classmate in the south of our class, who was very excited to see such heavy snow for the first time, went straight to climb on the snow …

A while ago, I went to Yantai for a business trip, which coincided with a heavy snow. The scenery after the snow is very good, which inevitably brings back good memories of that year. I have a question. Yantai has a lot of snow, which is called "snow nest". Why? Thanks to today's convenient network, I found the answer, and now it has been written.

Undoubtedly, this is definitely related to geographical location, but what kind of relationship is it? I summed up the following three points: sea, wind and mountains.

Yantai and Weihai are located in the east of Shandong Peninsula, along the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea, but they are different from most coastal cities in China. They face the sea to the north, which is rare in China.

As we all know, the heat dissipation rate of water is slower than that of earth and stone, and the water temperature of seawater is higher than that of inland surface in winter, so the heat preservation effect is good. Therefore, in winter, the temperature of seawater is higher than that of land. Therefore, a large area of warm zone has been formed around the two cities, and the temperature is higher than that of the land at the same latitude. The sea area also brings abundant warm and humid air flow, which creates conditions for the formation of abundant precipitation.

In winter, the north wind usually blows, or rather, the northwest monsoon. The cold monsoon roared from Siberia and the Mongolian Plateau, swept across the vast Bohai Sea, and went all the way south to the Weihai area of Yantai. This dry and cold airflow meets the warm and humid airflow rising from the sea surface over the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea. Hot and humid air is combined with cold air, and cold and warm air meet. The warm and humid airflow is forced to rise, and it will condense into snowflakes during the rising process, forming snowfall. This snowfall phenomenon, called "cold current snowfall" in meteorology, is a common snowfall form in Yantai.

Cold current snowfall is simply that cold air flows through the warm sea surface, so it is also called "Great Lakes Effect". This phenomenon is also common in the Great Lakes region of the United States. In winter, cold air passes through the water surface of the Great Lakes in the United States, and cold and warm air meet, so heavy snowfall often occurs in the downwind area of the Great Lakes.

The formation of "cold flow snowfall" needs two conditions, one is that it can be directly affected by strong cold air, and the other is that it needs a relatively warm water surface in the north, looking at the whole country, and at the same time meeting the conditions, only around the Bohai Sea. Generally speaking, the stronger the cold air, the higher the sea surface temperature in the Bohai Sea, which is more conducive to heavy snowfall. In contrast, in the inland areas of Shandong, because of the lack of warm and humid air flow in winter, cold air from Siberia rushed down non-stop, and there was no abundant snowfall.

The last factor is the influence of mountains. There are positive and negative effects of mountainous areas on snowfall in Yantai;

On the one hand, the northern part of Yantai is close to the Bohai Sea and the Yellow Sea, and there is no mountain block, which ensures that the cold air from the north can reach the Yantai coast directly. Assuming that there is a mountain block in the north of Yantai, the effect of cold flow snowfall will not be so obvious.

On the other hand, in the south of Yantai and Weihai, there is the most important mountain in Jiaodong Peninsula, namely Kunyu Mountain. Kunyu Mountain is 35 kilometers north and south, about 50 kilometers east and west, and its main peak is 923 meters above sea level. This mountain is neither big nor high, but it has had a considerable impact on the snowfall in its northern region.

When there is a northwest wind blowing, the suddenly rising terrain prevents the dry and cold airflow from the northwest from continuing southward, and the intersection of cold and warm airflow can only occur in Yantai and Weihai at the northern foot of Kunyu Mountain. Therefore, this special terrain has contributed to the "cold flow snowfall" effect. Therefore, the "cold current snowfall" along the northern coast of Yantai is often the largest, and it is still relatively frequent, and the "snow nest" also comes from this.

Below, combined with the above three reasons, review and summarize the whole process of snowfall in Yantai:

In winter, the cold current formed in Siberia, wrapped by the north wind, goes all the way south. The north wind crossed the vast northeast plain-Ma Pingchuan, and came to the Bohai Sea and the Yellow Sea, almost without being stopped by any mountains.

At the moment, humid air is rising from the Bohai Sea and the Yellow Sea. When it rises, it becomes clouds and fog, rich in water vapor. The north wind meets the water vapor, and then continues south to Yantai and Weihai on the north side of Jiaodong Peninsula.

When the north wind rich in water vapor reached the coast of Wei Yan, it was blocked by the mountain and forced to rise. In the process of rising, it condenses into ice crystals and falls to the ground, forming snowfall. Snowflakes keep falling in Yantai and Weihai.