The unusually cold
2018 mid-west winter
means more ice
on the Great Lakes.
Lake Erie usually freezes first
because it is shallower
than the other Great Lakes.
On February 14, 2018,
the Moderate Resolution Imaging
Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on
NASA’s Aqua satellite made these
color images of the Great Lakes.
The images were made from infrared and
visible light to better show
the snow and ice (teal)
and clouds (white).
Open water appears black, but so does clear ice
on the water without snow cover on it.
57.9 % of the Great Lakes surfaces
were covered with ice, according to
NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental
Research Laboratory.
Lake Erie was 93.3% iced over.
On the same day last year,
total Great Lakes ice cover was 9.7%.
Lake Erie is slightly larger than Lake Ontario
(the smallest Great Lake), but Erie is shallow,
so contains less than one-third
of the water volume of lake Ontario.
The much smaller water volume of Lake Erie
makes it the first Great Lake to freeze in winter,
and the first to thaw in the spring.
In January 2018, the US Coast Guard
had to send an icebreaker to free five ships
trapped in ice in the Straits of Mackinac.