What is meant by primary and secondary snow belts of the greater Cleveland Area?

Secondary snowbelts is an area in Northern Ohio were snow occurs maily when winds are directly from the north; i.e. Lorain, Medina, and the northern halves of Summit, Portage and Trumball counties. Areas bordering these counties also receive lake-effect snow, altough to a lesser extent.

Lake, Geauga, Cuyahoga (mainly the eastern half), and Ashtabula counties get much of the lake-effect snow in Ohio every year. For this reason, these four counties are known as the PRIMARY SNOW BELT. Snows in this area result when very cold winds from the west, northwest or north blow across the unfrozen lake.