Modeling wind‐driven circulation during the March 1998 sediment resuspension event in Lake Michigan

Abstract

A three‐dimensional primitive equation numerical ocean model was applied to Lake Michigan to simulate hydrodynamic conditions during the March 1998 sediment resuspension event in southern Lake Michigan caused by a storm with winds up to 20 m/s. The hydrodynamic model is driven with surface winds derived from observed meteorological conditions at 18 land stations and a meteorological buoy and also with surface winds calculated using a mesoscale meteorological model. Current observations from 11 subsurface moorings showed that the model driven with observed winds was able to qualitatively simulate wind‐driven currents but underestimated current speeds during the most significant wind event. In addition, a pronounced offshore flow in the area of observations was also underestimated. Hydrodynamic model results using the meteorological model winds as the forcing function showed significant improvement over model results which were based on observed winds proving the importance of mesoscale winds for current modeling in large lakes.