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Wind-driven ice lead formation on Lake Erie and Lake St. Croix

By Scott Bachmeier •

5-minute GOES-19 Visible images with hourly plots of surface wind barbs, from 1346-2201 UTC on 02 March [click to play MP4 animation]

5-minute CONUS Sector GOES-19 (GOES-East) Visible images (above) included plots of surface wind barbs — which showed a general easterly to southeasterly flow in the vicinity of Lake Erie, as high pressure was moving east of the Great Lakes (surface analyses) on 02 March 2026. A number of new ice leads opened across the eastern portion of the lake, while other leads that were already present were seen to grow in length and/or width.

A faster animation of GOES-19 True Color RGB images from the CSPP GeoSphere site (below) helped to emphasize the west-southwestward drift of ice in Lake Erie (as well as the northward drift of ice within the far southern part of Lake Huron).

5-minute GOES-19 True Color RGB images centered on Lake Erie, from 1301-2156 UTC on 02 March [click to play MP4 animation]

A closer look at GOES-19 True Color RGB imagery over Lake St. Clair (below) revealed an abrupt ice fracture that opened in the southeast portion of the lake — which pushed a large amount of ice westward (and even forced a few small ice floes to travel down the north end of the Detroit River).

5-minute GOES-19 True Color RGB images centered on Lake St. Clair, from 1301-2206 UTC on 02 March [click to play MP4 animation]

RCM-2 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Normalized Radar Cross Section (NRCS) imagery (below) provided a very detailed view of the Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair ice structure — including pre-existing ice leads — prior to sunrise.

RCM-2 SAR NCRS image at 1129 UTC on 02 March [click to enlarge]

On the following day, a combined analysis of Ice Concentration and Level Ice Thickness (below) indicated that much of the Lake Erie ice was at 9-10 Tenths concentration (red), with a maximum thickness of 12-28 inches (cross-hatched).

Analysis of Ice Concentration and Level Ice Thickness across the Great Lakes on 03 March [click to enlarge]

Categories: Cryosphere, GOES-19, Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images, SAR, Winter weather