Great Lakes Ice Cover Is the Largest We've Seen This Century

By: By Jon Erdman

Published: February 8,2014

 

 

 

 

 

MODIS satellite image of the Great Lakes on Feb. 7, 2014. Bright white in this image shows mainly clouds over the Great Lakes, however, you can see lake ice in southern and western Lake Michigan, southern Lake Superior, and far western Lake Erie. (UW-SSEC/Google Earth)

One effect of the persistently cold winter of 2013-2014 is showing up on the world's largest group of freshwater lakes.
According to an analysis by NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, ice covered 78.7 percent of the Great Lakes on February 6. Not since early 1996 has ice been so widespread on the Great Lakes.
This is an abrupt turn around from the past four winters, during which the peak ice coverage remained around 40 percent or less. As you can see in the graph below, the 40-year average is just over 51 percent.

Yearly peak Great Lakes ice coverage (percent) from 1973-2013. (NOAA/GLERL)

Dating to 1973, the two years with the largest ice coverage were 1979 (94.7 percent peak) and 1994 (90.7 percent).

Ice on Lake Michigan as far as you can see to the horizon in Feb. 2014. (Louise Olson via The Weather Channel Facebook page)

When looking at individual lakes, just over 92 percent of Lake Superior, just under 88 percent of Lake Huron, almost 95 percent of Lake Erie, and around 53 percent of Lake Michigan is ice covered. Much deeper Lake Ontario is only about 29 percent of ice covered.
As a result, caves near the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore are now open to foot traffic, thanks to sufficiently thick ice on Lake Superior.
(PHOTOS: Apostle Islands Ice Caves)
Winter weather expert for The Weather Channel, Tom Niziol (Twitter | Facebook), noted the current Great Lakes ice cover was pacing quite close to that from early February 1977, another year in which the peak ice cover topped 90 percent.
Let's compare the current ice cover to the early February ice cover in the two standard-bearing years mentioned above:

• Feb. 5, 1979: 66.8%
• Feb. 7, 1994: 83.6%

So, we're pacing ahead of 1979 but behind 1994.
Will the cold persist to allow the ice to continue to spread?
Through most of the upcoming week, temperatures will remain generally much colder than average over the Midwest and Northeast.
Beyond that, there are some preliminary indications the cold may finally ease up the following week, but that outlook remains too uncertain at this time.
(Special thanks to Dr. Matt Sitkowski, Science & Weather Coordinator at The Weather Channel, for research help with this piece.)

MORE:  Ice-encased Lighthouses

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A wide view of the St. Joseph, Michigan outer range light, from under the ice-covered catwalk on Jan. 26, 2013. (Tom Gill)