CIMSS Satellite Blog

GOES-12 visible imagery (above; Java animation) revealed several large “ice floes” that were moving rapidly southwestward across southern Lake Michigan on 14 February 2007. Strong northeasterly winds associated with an intense winter storm in the northeastern US were likely breaking large pieces of “fast ice” from the Michigan shore and causing them to drift toward the southern end of Lake Michigan. A well-defined cloud band can also be seen to the west of the ice floes — this feature produced 1-3 inches of lake-effect snowfall as it moved inland across northeastern Illinois and northwestern Indiana. 250-meter resolution MODIS true color imagery (below; Java animation) shows these ice features with better clarity than the 1-km resolution GOES-12 imagery.

The lake-effect snowfall (LES) across the eastern Great Lakes region during the early February 2007 arctic outbreak has been phenomenal: as of 12 February, storm total snowfall amounts downwind of Lake Ontario have been as high as 141 inches in Redfield, New York (accumulations of 27 inches in 12 hours were reported, along with snowfall rates of up to 4-5 inches per hour). A series of daily Terra and Aqua MODIS true color images during the 03-09 February period (Java animation) show the well-defined LES bands over Lake Erie and Lake Ontario; you can also see the areal extent of lake ice increasing during this time over Lake Erie (this lake is the most shallow of the five Great Lakes, so it tends to freeze the earliest).

GOES-12 visible imagery (below; Java animation) shows the movement of an intense LES band across Lake Ontario on 06 February 2007.