Memorial Day Weekend and Ice Remains On Lake Superior

It is Memorial Day Weekend and we are still talking about ice on Lake Superior.  Ice remains after a very brutal and unusually cold winter.  

At this time a record around 4 percent of the lake still has ice, including the head of the lake and the Apostle 

Islands.

National Weather Service experts predict an ice out will take place the first week of June.

Experts say the water is still hovering around 34 degrees. The ice will melt faster once the lake reaches 40 degrees.

Great Lakes Could Have Ice Till June After Record Cold Winter

Lake Superior is still over 60 percent covered in ice as of yesterday Saturday April 26, 2014. The satellite pictures shown above were the latest I could find that had clear skies and good vision of the ice. These high resolution satellite images come from April 23 and April 24, 2014.

On Wednesday April 23, 2014 Lake Superior had 68 percent ice cover. According to the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, the previous highest amount of ice on that date was in 1979 when there was 38 percent ice cover.

So the ice on Lake Superior is currently almost twice as much as recorded for this late date in the ice season. The records go back to 1973.

On Wednesday, Lake Michigan still had 15 percent ice cover. The highest amount in the records on that date was five percent in 1979. This means Lake Michigan has three times the previous highest ice amount on April 23.

Lake Huron was still reporting 25 percent ice, with the previous late season high at 11 percent in 1996.

Lake Erie melts quicker due to the shallow nature, but still had 7.6 percent ice on April 23, 2014. Previously on that date the highest amount of ice was three percent in 1978.

Lake Ontario still has eight-tenths of one percent ice cover. That's not much, but it is still more than the six-tenths it had in 1977.

The entire Great Lakes system still reported 35 percent ice cover this past Wednesday. The closest amount of ice at this late date was 16 percent in 1979.

Lake Superior could have ice in June

Even in high ice years of 1977, 1978, 1979, 1994, and 1996, a few of those years Lake Superior still had one-tenth of one percent ice covered on May 31. With that given Lake Superior has nearly double its late season ice amount, ice could still be on Lake Superior in June this year.

Lake Ontario

Lake Huron

Lake Michigan

Lake Superior

Lake Erie

Great Lakes Closing In On 1979 Ice Record

The long deep freeze across the Upper Midwest this winter has left a whopping 80 percent of the Great Lakes covered in ice.

Data from the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, shows that more than half of Lake Michigan (54 percent) is on ice.

Neither number is a record, but those percentages are much higher than normal for the winter. Among the other Great Lakes, Lake Erie is nearly a full skating rink (94 percent), followed by Superior (93 percent); Huron (89 percent) and Ontario (38 percent).

The record Great Lakes ice-covering is 94 percent, set in the legendary winter of 1979.

Satellite  image 2/4/14