(WLUK) — Lake Michigan is typically a gentle giant, but under the right conditions, its waters can turn into a frenzy.

When the November storms begin to howl, Lake Michigan turns into a roiling storm.

Normally the waves on the big lake can reach one or two feet. However, the National Weather Service says waves could reach 12 feet Monday evening through Tuesday.

It takes certain ingredients to get such big waves on our watery neighbor to the east. The biggest driver for getting big waves on Lake Michigan is wind – and we’ll have plenty of that, thanks to this approaching storm.

Gale warnings are in effect for the entire lake Monday night through Tuesday. Wind gusts of up to 45 kilometers per hour are regularly expected.

The wind is the biggest factor in driving these waves, but there are other important factors. That wind has to blow for an extended period of time – it can’t just last an hour or two.

Another factor is the fetch: the distance the wind travels over the water. Longer catches mean a longer distance for the wind to transfer energy into the water. More energy means bigger waves.

And another factor could be lake ice. When the lake is frozen, it cannot transfer that energy to the water’s surface.

We have all these ingredients available from Monday evening to Tuesday.

The winds in this storm will shift from the southeast to the south, which runs a long distance from Lake Michigan, as opposed to a straight easterly or westerly wind.

Winds will be strong, with gusts up to 45 miles per hour, and will be at their strongest for most of 12 hours.

Combine that with a slight angle to shore, and it could mean some pretty big waves hitting our lakeside counties during the first half of Tuesday.