It's 44 Degrees in Avon Lake, But 79 in Shaker. What's Up With That?

Admit it: If you live near Lake Erie, the last few days you’ve been wondering how it is that it’s only 43 degrees where you are, but your friends in Shaker Heights and Twinsburg are bragging on Facebook that they are enjoying the 79 degree "it's-almost-too-hot-out" weather.

That’s been the situation in greater Cleveland (including "in between" in Westlake) for the past few days as lakefront communities are wondering where spring is and the more inland towns are donning shorts and tank tops, and getting their garden rakes out.

I spent the day in shorts and a T-shirt but when I got downtown Tuesday night it was cold," Shaker Heights resident Chuck Imm said, noting it was almost 80 by his house at 7 p.m.

We checked with CBS/WOIO meteorologist Jon Loufman, a weather pro who also teaches meteorology at Lorain County Community College for an explanation.

"(On Tuesday) I took my son from Bay Village, where it was 40-something, over to Walker Road Park in Avon Lake for soccer practice,” Loufman said. “We got there and it was in the 70s. Kids were running around sweating, but by the end of practice it was back into the 40s.”

At 3 p.m. on April 9, the temperature at Burke Lakefront Airport was 46 degrees. At the same time, the weather station at Cleveland Hopkins was reporting 74 degrees.

“It’s due to a stationary front straddling the Lake Erie shoreline,” Loufman said. The west-to-east front is cold on the its northern boundary over the cold water but warm on the front's southern part. “This front across the shoreline is oscillating, so the temperatures really fluctuate."

Loufman described the front—named after WWI battle fronts where one side of soldiers would leave the trenches and push forward and retreat before the  opposition would then take its turn—as a war between winds coming from the north pushing the air mass south, and the southern winds pushing the mass back back north.

As a result, a good portion of Cleveland saw wild temperature swings in the past few days.

“I can go on the air today and say the temperature is going to be between 45 and 80 degrees and I’ll be right,” Loufman said of the front which he expects to move out by the weekend. “Neither side wins for long.”

Cleveland being adjacent to Lake Erie also factors in, and temperature changes are more pronounced with the seasons.

“Right now, Lake Erie water is only in the mid-30s,” Loufman said.

He said air coming from Canada may be in the 50s, but after coming across Lake Erie, it could drop to 45-47 degrees before it arrives over the land with the cooler air lingering near areas close to the lake. “The lake has acted as a freezer.”

Before those inland gloat, the fall brings a reverse. With the lake warmed up to 85 degrees in the summer, coastal towns, such as Avon Lake and Lakewood, may be spared the frost and early snowfalls inland towns might see.

“In the fall, cool breezes will warm by the lake and it’s much cooler air inland,” Loufman said.