No one’s eyesight is good enough to be able to see Canada from Ohio. But some people looking across Lake Erie insist that they can. It’s called the Lake Erie Mirage Effect.
What’s the Lake Erie Mirage Effect?
In Northeastern Ohio, there are days when people look out across Lake Erie and see the Canadian shoreline. However, that shoreline is over 50 miles away. It’s rare to see it, but the strange phenomenon has an explanation.
The curvature of the Earth prevents us from seeing objects that far into the distance. However, under the right conditions, the Lake Erie Mirage appears.
This is due to temperature inversion and super-refraction. Temperature inversion is a phenomenon in which temperature increases with height (normally it’s the other way around). This causes density changes in the air that make sunlight bend downward (that’s the super-refraction). As a results, the naked eye can see things far beyond the horizon.
What conditions are necessary to see the mirage?
First, the lake needs to be cooler than the air above it for the temperature inversion to occur. The cold lake makes the air right above it colder, but the farther you go up, the warmer the air is since it’s not being immediately cooled by the lake.
Warm air is less dense than cool air, so it creates a “cap” that flows over the cool air beneath it. When the sun comes out, the light rays bounce off that cap and bend down towards the surface.
This lets us see around the curvature of the Earth. But to get the Lake Erie Mirage Effect, you also need calm winds, so the mirage doesn’t get distorted.
It’s all pretty rare, but Canadians can see Clevelanders driving down the street when the conditions are right on their side too. — WTF fun facts
