Intermittent satellite images collected over in the last few years have revealed episodic late winter-spring plumes coinciding with northerly storms in southern Lake Michigan. A major inter-disciplinary observational program was initiated to study the importance of these episodic events on nearshore-offshore transport and the subsequent ecological consequences. In this paper, high density observations of winds and currents made during the winter of 2000 are analyzed to study the variability of the coastal circulation and the physical mechanisms resulting in the alongshore and cross-shore transport in the lake. The measurements of currents show the signature of forced two-gyre circulation in the southern basin. During northerly storm episodes the combination of directly wind forced currents and northward propagating vorticity wave generate significant offshore transport in this region.