<p>Lake breezes are proved by downdrafts and the divergence flows of zonal wind in the source region of the Yellow River in the daytime based on ERA-Interim reanalysis data. In order to depict the effect of the circulations induced by surface anomaly heating (patches) on the boundary-layer turbulence, the large eddy model was used to produce a set of 1D strip-like surface heat flux distributions based on observations, which obtained by a field campaign in the Ngoring Lake Basin in the summer of 2012. The simulations show that for the cases without ambient winds, patch-induced circulations (SCs) enhance the turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) and then modify the spatial distribution of TKE. Based on phase-averaged analysis, which separates the attribution from the SCs and the background turbulence, the SCs contribute no more than 10 % to the vertical turbulent intensity, but their contributions to the heat flux can be up to 80 %. The lake patches produce consistent spatial distributions of wind speed and turbulent stress over the lake–land boundary, and the obvious change of turbulent momentum flux over the boundary of patches can not be neglected. In the entrainment layer, the convective rolls still persist under stronger geostrophic winds of 7–11 m s<sup>−1</sup>. The increased downdrafts, which mainly occur over the lake patches and carry more warm, dry air down from the free atmosphere. In general, the SCs promote the growth of convective boundary layer, while the background flows inhibit it. The background winds also weaken the patch-induced turbulent intensity, heat flux, and convective intensity.</p>