This is a 250 meter resolution visible satellite image taken from the NASA TERRA Polar Orbiting satellite Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the afternoon of July 16, 2009. For those with a good geography background, you should be able to make out Lakes Erie and Ontario, along with western New York state and the adjacent portion of the province of Ontario. Notice that on this afternoon, there are no clouds over the cool lakes. However, some miles inland from the lakes, there is a lot of cloud cover. Also notice the yellow arrows. The yellow arrows are drawn in to indicate wind direction. The long yellow arrow is the prevailing wind direction on that day, from the Southwest. If you look closely you can see that the city of Buffalo is cloud-free because the cooler southwest winds have kept the temperature a bit cooler over the city and that keeps clouds from forming. The tiny arrows show a local lake breeze that develops off the lakes on days like this. You can see how those cool breezes suppress cloud growth along and just inland from the shore. Finally, where the winds are converging together along a line from about North Tonawanda to Lockport, there is enough lift produced by that convergence to develop bigger clouds that often grow into showers and at times thunderstorms in this area on warm summer days.