For the second year in a row, the cold winter weather threatens to turn the surface of the Great Lakes into frozen plains.
Experts from the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL) have reported that most of the surface of the lakes is now covered with ice.
On Friday, Feb. 20, GLERL reported that almost 81 percent of the surface of the lakes is covered with ice. If this seems vast enough, it was actually slightly down from what was recorded the previous day when the agency reported that 85.4 percent of the Great Lakes was covered with ice, a glitch that, according to physical scientist George Leshkevich, may have occurred due to strong winds that broke some ice apart and led to the formation of open spots that the satellite detected.
Leshkevich said that it is possible that the forecast below average temperature for next week could result in the ice coverage approaching the 2014 level, when 92.5 percent of the waters were covered with ice.
Frigid weather is being forecast through the end of the month, and this means the ice cover will keep expanding. It has already significantly grown as temperatures dropped almost double in just a couple of weeks.
Leshkevich said that, although lake ice is often gone by May, the ice last year lingered until June. If this happens again this year, there is a high likelihood of a cool spring as late and heavy ice season is known to lead to a cooler spring.
"Last year, we had ice throughout May, and even lingering into June. If that happens again, we're likely to have a cool spring, which is good for the fruit growers along Lake Michigan; [it] saves them from possible killing frost," Leshkevich said.
Based on records, the Great Lakes had the most widespread freeze at 94.7 percent in 1979. While a considerable portion of the lakes typically froze over many years ago, Leshkevich said that severe winters were no longer as frequent since the late 1990s and thus two consecutive record-setting years can be very unusual.
One likely explanation for the rapid ice buildup this month is that last year's freeze lasted so long that Lake Superior was not yet fully ice-free until June. Summer was likewise mild, which meant that the lakes did not absorb much heat.
The ice blanket now covers over 90 percent of Lakes Erie, Huron and Superior while Lakes Michigan and Ontario are now covered over halfway.
