SAR data for winds and ice over the Great Lakes
Data from this site shows SAR observations over the Great Lakes daily around 0000 and 1200 UTC. The image above shows SAR data over Lake Superior just before 1200 UTC on 10 January. The background flow used in processing shows strong northwesterly winds. Note the relative calm in the lee of the Keewenah peninsula, and an interesting boundary in the winds near Michipicoten Island. As noted in this blog post from December, the strongest winds are likely associated with enhanced Lake-Effect bands, as enhanced vertical mixing in those bands will allow stronger upper level winds to mix down to the lake surface.
Does ABI imagery show enhancements in the regions where the SAR data indicates enhanced mixing with convective bands? Consider the 3.9 µm image below (from this NOAA/STAR website) from 1201 UTC. Cold cloud tops northeast of Marquette MI do correlate well with the strong winds in that regions.
Scatterometry can also be used to measure winds on the lake surface. The imagery below (from this website) shows vectors from the Chinese HY-2B scatterometer at 1330 UTC. Spatial resolution for this imagery is much coarser, and observations closer to shore do not occur. Northwest winds of at least 30 knots are indicated however.
A careful observer of the SAR winds above might notice very strong winds in/around Little Bay de Noc, the northeastern part of Green Bay. Care must be taken to differentiate between ice and winds in regions where ice is present, as SAR data can be also used to identify regions of ice. The toggle below of NOAA-20 True and False color imagery over the western Great Lakes (from the VIIRS today website) does show cyan regions — typical of ice — over northeastern Green Bay. (Click here for highest resolution False Color imagery from NOAA-20 on 9 January)
What kind of wave heights are these strong northwesterly winds generating over Lake Superior? Altimetric data from SMAP, below, (source) shows 6-8 foot waves over western Lake Superior. The longer fetch for the region northeast of Marquette probably means much higher waves there.
