Lake Erie’s Storm Surges Become More Extreme

This winter turned Lake Erie into a near‑frozen landscape, with the lake almost completely iced over and blue‑tinted piles of ice up to 25 feet tall along the shore. High winds carved an 80‑mile crack across the ice and drove tsunami‑like waves of brash ice onto the near shore; as James Kessler of NOAA noted, “Ice cover is well above average this year, but not unprecedented.” Those dramatic scenes sit against a longer trend of warming: ice cover on the Great Lakes has declined about 5 percent per decade over the last 50 years.

More frequent stretches of low or no ice extend the season when storms can pick up moisture and energy from open water, increasing the chance that surges will raise water levels and push water inland while forcing the lake to recede along parts of the western shoreline.

The storms can be powerful and sudden.

lake erie, storm surges, ice cover, great lakes, brash ice, noaa, open water, water levels, western shoreline, warming trend