Great Lakes Ice Expanding Rapidly
Last week’s record breaking polar arctic temperatures did more than just chill us to the bones. It actually rapidly expanded the ice that covers the surface of our Great Lakes.
In just nine days of the extreme cold the ice on the Great Lakes expanded from just 18% to 40%. Check out the Analysis of the Great Lakes ice coverage courtesy of the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory National Ice Center
I bring you this news so you understand just how cold it was here in Michigan as well as our surrounding states.
As reported by meteorologist Mark Torregrossa in Mlive the ice coverage is not out of the ordinary. Around this time last year 43% of our Great Lakes were covered in ice and:
In the winter of 2013-2014 the ice cover was remarkable. At this time in 2014, there was 70 percent ice cover on the Great Lakes, and heading to a peak ice amount of 96 percent frozen.
What is interesting to me is the rapid expansion of the ice covering the Great Lakes in such a short time.