In the Northern Hemisphere, snow sometimes organizes into more intense banded patterns just north of the warm front and northwest of the low pressure center. These bands of snow can stand alone with no echo returns between them, but usually they occur as bands of enhanced reflectivity values among a generally consistent background level of snow. Snow banding is also common during lake effect and lake enhanced snow events.

Lake effect snow usually takes the form of multiple narrow bands that are oriented parallel to the wind direction.

In some cases, a single, large band may set up along the center of the body of water.

To summarize, some useful indicators of whether radar is detecting rain or snow are the following:

• Snow usually contains very weak gradients in reflectivity value.
• An area of snow, especially dry snow, will have fuzzy edges instead of a distinct echo edge.
• An area of snow will often have a grainy, textured appearance.
• Snow may develop into bands of enhanced reflectivity, especially along the warm front, to the northwest of the low pressure center, and on the downwind side of lakes and other open water.
• Examine your local sounding and low-level temperature data to see what type of precipitation could develop.

Of course, dual-polarization radar data, when available, greatly enhances the ability to determine precipitation types.