Mid-February view of Lake Erie
True- and False-color imagery of Lake Erie from VIIRS data on NOAA-20, above, show a Lake largely clear of ice in mid-February (!). Cyan colors in the False-color imagery do suggest lake ice along the northern shore of Erie, however, to the east of Kingsville Ontario, and to the east of Port Stanley Ontario. The regions with ice are circled in this annotated false color image.
Clear skies meant that the Advanced Clear-Sky Processing for Ocean (ACSPO) algorithm could produce estimates of lake surface temperatures, shown below. The warmest temperatures — near 37oF, green in the enhancement — are just northeast of Erie, PA.
In fact, most of the Great Lakes had clear skies at 1836 UTC. Click here to see the SSTs. The mostly clear skies continued overnight on 14 February, and the image below shows ACSPO SSTs and the Day Night Band.
