The Winter of 2013 – 2014: A Cold, Snowy and Icy Winter in North America
- Visualizations by:
- Cindy Starr
- Scientific consulting by:
- Dorothy Hall and
- George Leshkevich
- View full credits
By early December, snow blanketed the mountains in the western United States and by January and February snow and unusually cold weather, with some record-breaking low temperatures and snowfall amounts, had reached parts of Canada and the eastern United States. New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago all had one of their ten snowiest winters, while Detroit had its snowiest winter on record.
Ice formed early in the 2013 – 2014 winter, and stayed late on the Great Lakes. The maximum ice extent, 92.5 %, occurred on March 6th. This is the second most extensive ice cover observed over the Great Lakes during the satellite era (the record was 94.7% in 1979). Four of the Great Lakes (Superior, Michigan, Huron and Erie) became 90% or more ice covered for the first time since 1994. Lake Michigan reached 93.3% ice cover on March 8, 2014, setting a new record. The ice season persisted until the official ice-off date of June 6th. The extensive and thick ice cover on the Great Lakes in 2014 caused significant difficulties for shipping throughout the season.
Lake Superior reached its maximum ice extent on March 5th at 95.7%.The United States Coast Guard icebreaker, USCGC Mackinaw, attempts to establish a shipping lane and escort three lake freighters from the Duluth area to the locks at Sault Ste. Marie. Although the locks opened for the shipping season on March 25th, owing to the severe ice conditions the first freighter did not transit the locks until April 4th. Part of the ship track of the Mackinaw is shown in the animation (from March 21st to March 24th 2014). Some views of the extensive ice cover, having a thickness up to 42 inches in eastern Lake Superior, are reminiscent of sea ice in polar oceans.
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio.
Special thanks to the U.S. Coast Guard for icebreaker and helicopter support.
Visualizer
- Cindy Starr (GST) [Lead]
Video editor
- Cindy Starr (GST)
Scientists
- Dorothy Hall (NASA/GSFC) [Lead]
- George Leshkevich (NOAA) [Lead]
- Son Nghiem (NASA/JPL CalTech)
Technical support
- Ian Jones (ADNET)
- Laurence Schuler (ADNET)
Missions
This visualization is related to the following missions:Datasets used in this visualization
SHIZUKU (GCOM-W1) 10 km Daily 89 GHz Brightness Temperature (Collected with the AMSR2 sensor)
Credit: AMSR2 data courtesy of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
See more visualizations using this data setSHIZUKU (GCOM-W1) 10 km Daily Sea Ice Concentration (Collected with the AMSR2 sensor)
Credit: AMSR2 data courtesy of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
See more visualizations using this data setTerra and Aqua BMNG (A.K.A. Blue Marble: Next Generation) (Collected with the MODIS sensor)
Credit: The Blue Marble data is courtesy of Reto Stockli (NASA/GSFC).
Dataset can be found at: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/BlueMarble/
See more visualizations using this data setGreat Lakes Daily Ice Concentration
Dataset can be found at: http://www.natice.noaa.gov/products/great_lakes.html
See more visualizations using this data setTerra Snow Cover Daily L3 Global 0.05Deg CMG (MOD10C1) (Collected with the MODIS sensor)
Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.