{"id":69293,"date":"2026-03-02T22:55:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T22:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=69293"},"modified":"2026-03-06T22:09:59","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T22:09:59","slug":"wind-driven-ice-lead-formation-on-lake-erie-and-lake-st-croix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/69293","title":{"rendered":"Wind-driven ice lead formation on Lake Erie and Lake St. Croix"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><div style=\"width: 3258px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/03\/260302_goes19_visible_surfaceWinds_Lake_Erie_ice.mp4\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/03\/260302_1601utc_g19_vis_winds_Lake_Erie.png\" width=\"3248\" height=\"1922\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">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]<\/p><\/div>5-minute CONUS Sector GOES-19 <em>(GOES-East)<\/em>\u00a0Visible images <em><strong>(above)<\/strong><\/em> included plots of surface wind barbs &#8212; which showed a general easterly to southeasterly flow in the vicinity of Lake Erie, as high pressure was moving east of the Great Lakes (<a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/03\/260302_surface_analyses_anim.gif\"><strong>surface analyses<\/strong><\/a>) 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.<\/p>\n<p>A faster animation of GOES-19 True Color RGB images from the <a href=\"https:\/\/geosphere.ssec.wisc.edu\/#playing:true;coordinate:-177256,137866;zoom:1.4;num_frames:60;\"><strong>CSPP GeoSphere<\/strong><\/a> site <em><strong>(below)<\/strong><\/em> 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).<\/p>\n<p><div style=\"width: 1325px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/03\/260302_goes19_trueColorRGB_Lake_Erie_ice.mp4\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/03\/goeseast_abi_radc_true_color_night_20260302203117.png\" width=\"1315\" height=\"743\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">5-minute GOES-19 True Color RGB images centered on Lake Erie, from 1301-2156 UTC on 02 March [click to play MP4 animation]<\/p><\/div>A closer look at GOES-19 True Color RGB imagery over Lake St. Clair <em><strong>(below)<\/strong><\/em> revealed an abrupt ice fracture that opened in the southeast portion of the lake &#8212; 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).<\/p>\n<p><div style=\"width: 1325px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/03\/260302_goes19_trueColorRGB_LakeStClair_ice.mp4\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/03\/goeseast_abi_radc_true_color_night_20260302191617-2.png\" width=\"1315\" height=\"743\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">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]<\/p><\/div>RCM-2 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Normalized Radar Cross Section (<a href=\"https:\/\/coastwatch.noaa.gov\/cwn\/products\/synthetic-aperture-radar-imagery-nrcs.html\"><strong>NRCS<\/strong><\/a>) imagery <em><strong>(below)<\/strong><\/em> provided a very detailed view of the Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair ice structure &#8212; including pre-existing ice leads &#8212; prior to sunrise.<\/p>\n<p><div style=\"width: 7637px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/03\/RCM2_SHUB_2026_03_02_11_29_27_0825766167_080.66W_42.21N_HH_C_MERGED01_nrcs.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/03\/RCM2_SHUB_2026_03_02_11_29_27_0825766167_080.66W_42.21N_HH_C_MERGED01_nrcs.png\" width=\"7627\" height=\"3755\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">RCM-2 SAR NCRS image at 1129 UTC on 02 March [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>On the following day, a combined analysis of Ice Concentration and Level Ice Thickness <strong><em>(below)<\/em><\/strong> 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).<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 2210px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/03\/260303_ice_concentration_level_ice_thickness.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2026\/03\/260303_ice_concentration_level_ice_thickness.png\" width=\"2200\" height=\"1700\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Analysis of Ice Concentration and Level Ice Thickness across the Great Lakes on 03 March [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>5-minute CONUS Sector GOES-19 (GOES-East)\u00a0Visible images (above) included plots of surface wind barbs &#8212; 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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":69295,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[108,159,45,104,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryosphere","category-goes-19","category-redgreenblue-rgb-images","category-sar","category-winter-weather"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69293"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69336,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69293\/revisions\/69336"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}