March 23, 2021 - The Great Lakes Straddle the Seasons

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   The Great Lakes
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   As winter gave way to spring, the Great Lakes appeared to straddle the
   seasons on March 21, 2021. The greens and tans of early spring colored
   the landscape south of the lakes, while winter’s snow clung to the
   ground on most of the northern coastlines. The Moderate Resolution
   Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite
   acquired this true-color image of the Great Lakes on that same day.

   Each year, ice forms on the Great Lakes as frigid air temperatures take
   hold. As daylight lengthens and air temperatures warm in the spring,
   the lakes begin to shed their winter cover of ice. The ice season
   typically begins in December and ends in April, with an average maximum
   ice cover (measured between 1972-2020) measured at 53%. This year,
   however, the Great Lakes ice season was anything but typical.

   This season started with unseasonably mild temperatures, as much as 8°
   Fahrenheit (4.5° Celsius) above normal through mid-January. Lake
   Erie—the shallowest of the Great Lakes and often the first to
   freeze—had one of the lowest amounts of ice on record for the time of
   year. Early February brought a dramatic shift. Temperatures plummeted
   as low as 17° F below normal and blue lakes transformed into white
   lakes. But when temperatures climbed again in mid-February, the fragile
   ice cover broke up and melted as fast as it had formed. By February 20,
   the total ice cover across the lakes was near the season’s maximum
   extent of 46.5 percent. But by March 3, ice covered just 15 percent of
   the lake surfaces.

   According to the U.S. National Weather Service Great Lakes Ice Outlook
   published on March 22, ice coverage on the Great Lakes remains limited.
   It is confined to the protected bays of the Upper Great Lakes,
   including Green Bay, the Straits of Mackinac, and northern and eastern
   portions of Georgian Bay. Lake Erie is essentially ice-free, with only
   small amounts of very localized ice lingering along parts of the
   lakeshore. With air temperatures forecast to remain normal to above
   normal across the region, ice coverage is expected to continue to
   decrease.

   Image Facts
   Satellite:  Terra
   Date Acquired: 3/21/2021
   Resolutions:  1km (610.7 KB),  500m (2 MB),  250m (4.6 MB)
   Bands Used: 1,4,3
   Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC



https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2021-03-23
 
