Posted on 02/11/2014 5:12:28 PM PST by Sub-Driver
Ice Expert Predicts Lake Superior Will Completely Freeze Over This Winter
February 11, 2014 - 3:22 PM
By Barbara Hollingsworth
(CNSNews.com) – Lake Superior hasn’t completely frozen over in two decades.
But an expert on Great Lakes ice says there’s a “very high likelihood” that the three-quadrillion-gallon lake will soon be totally covered with ice thanks to this winter’s record-breaking cold.
The ice cover on the largest freshwater lake in the world hit a 20-year record of 91 percent on Feb. 5, 1994.
Jay Austin, associate professor at the Large Lakes Observatory in Duluth, Minn., told CNSNews.com that he expects that record will be broken this winter when the most northern of the Great Lakes becomes totally shrouded in ice.
The thickness of the ice on Lake Superior “varies tremendously,” from a very thin sheet in some areas near the coast to several feet thick in other spots, Austin says. The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports that the mean thickness of the lake ice is 26 cm, or a little over 10 inches.
Austin attributes the large amount of ice on the lake to the “extraordinary cold winter we’ve had,” pointing out that Duluth recently experienced an all-time record of 23 straight days of below-zero temperatures.
The previous record of 22 days was set in 1936 and tied in 1963, according to the National Weather Service.
Austin, who studies the effect of lake ice, predicts that it will have a “very strong influence” on the regional climate this summer, with the “air conditioning [lake] effect” more pronounced than usual.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
Seems like every cold winter some idiots drive out on Lake Erie to go ice fishing when a mile long slab of ice breaks off and heads for Canada. The Coast Guard rescues the people, but the cars go to the bottom of the lake when it thaws.
I have said since I was a lad that Feb is the worst bit of winter.
Been there..........
In Minnysoter they park one on the ice and bet on when it will go though during the thaw.
It’s a Frostbite Falls thing. LOL
Its funny how quickly we get acclimated to the weather. I was wandering the yard today without my coat and it was only about 15 degrees. A month ago that would have sent me running for the house fast.
I never made it. Hawkbill went there the year I got out of service and again in 99.
2 weeks ago we had 15 below and everything was closed for 2 days. Today we had 15 below and there was hardly a mention of it. A slight exaggeration but not much.
There must have been no wind.
Not the largest by volume - number 3.
I believe the Discovery Channel did a show on how the Great Lakes formed; they clearly showed how the Escarpment created a ring in which Michigan, Huron and Erie formed.
Yeah the basement rocks under Michigan almost look like a crater but they’re sedimentary dolostone. Lake Superior and Ontario are unrelated. Both are ancient dead rift valleys.
GorBullWarming brings on some of the BEST ice fishing you could ever imagine.
I remember that back in the ‘60’s, when Erie was SO POLLUTED it COULDN’T freeze over. Paint on boats blistered. Boats made of fiberglass started to dissolve.
In the middle ‘60’s, the lake was declared DEAD!
But then, one year it did in fact freeze over. And people gained a renewed interest.
Then, in the years of the darkest days of Lake Erie all the industries along its shores, agreed to clean the lake up, and it went from a “dead zone” to an alive lake.
Folks were able to ice skate on it big time. And with renewed interest and help from the corporations that lived along its banks, the lake came back.
The past is a pointer to your future.
Just imagine how much worse the cold and ice would be this year if we didn't have so much man-made global warming!
“Ice Expert Predicts Lake Superior Will Completely Freeze Over This Winter”
There you go. Proof positive of global warming.
No? Can't find the shot? Well, let's check the vault.
We don’t have any polar bears in southern Michigan.....yet.
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