Migrating drift ice
As a follow-up to the previous blog post, cold air and lake-effect snow continued across the Great Lakes region on 05 February 2007. GOES-12 visible imagery (above; Java animation) revealed a narrow filament of drift ice that was being pushed by strong winds eastward out of the northern portion of Green Bay (just north of Washington Island) and into Lake Michigan. An AWIPS image of the MODIS sea surface temperature (SST) product indicated that lake water temperatures had cooled to the 32º to 41º F (0º to +5º C) range off the coast of Wisconsin. Also, note how the motion of the lake-effect snow bands over Lake Superior (in northern portion of the images) changes during the day, as the boundary layer winds develop more of a westerly component. Finer detail in the drift ice structure in Green Bay and northern Lake Michigan can be seen on a 500-m resolution MODIS true color image (below); drift ice coverage was also increasing in southern Lake Michigan, from Milwaukee WI to Chicago IL to South Bend IN.
