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Great Lakes Ice Cover


WE GOT HIM

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Strange weather yesterday near the lake shore. Thunder snow, tropical downpour then very deep freeze -all between 9 & 10:30 PM.

The weather here is getting stranger & stranger.

Terry

Nothing strange about being in the warm sector of a northern lake cutter.

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Just from general experience and memory I doubt any lasting effect on lake temperature more than a month or two after the ice melts. Which would be what.. March or April for most of the lakes.. maybe May for the northern ones?

 

Lake Superior might not be ice free until May, but the summer water temps will keep the immediate coast colder. It won't make that much of a difference.

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Just from general experience and memory I doubt any lasting effect on lake temperature more than a month or two after the ice melts. Which would be what.. March or April for most of the lakes.. maybe May for the northern ones?

Volume is a factor as well. To the degree that ice out slows flow, we could be looking at higher/more persistent lake levels, something that contributes to air temps in the Lake Ontario region at least.

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I'm not sure about the summer. The winter of 1935-36 was even colder than this one in the upper Midwest and Great Lakes and was followed by one of the hottest summers on record.

True. The lakes are just a factor, but for instance, a recent low volume/high water temp year turned a 'normal' summer warm, while a high volume/cool water temp year turned a cool summer quite chilly.

 

At least, that's what the corn said. 

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Climate.gov finally mentions something that is related to cold. Up until a few days it

was warm warm and more warm and drought drought and more drought.

The web address is just that   climate.gov   and the first feature is the Great Lakes Ice.

Of course the article starts out like this...  "Relative to 1973, annual ice maximum ice cover

on the Great Lakes has declined by 71 percent through 2010..."  Way to cherry pick

the dates, the 1970s cool period compared to recent warmer winters. Anyway,

the graph they show compares the recent winter to the undefined long term mean

which I assume is 1973-2010??     This year is almost as high as the late 1970s

but the data is up until February 13th. Not sure where we are at now. To me it shows

that the winter in the Great Lakes region at least is approaching the historic cold

of the late 1970s despite what the "adjusted (up)" temperatures show for DJF. 

 

post-1184-0-08385500-1393352995_thumb.jp

 

They also mention in this article that it could have an effect on cooling into the

summer.... 

 

 

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Climate.gov finally mentions something that is related to cold. Up until a few days it

was warm warm and more warm and drought drought and more drought.

The web address is just that   climate.gov   and the first feature is the Great Lakes Ice.

Of course the article starts out like this...  "Relative to 1973, annual ice maximum ice cover

on the Great Lakes has declined by 71 percent through 2010..."  Way to cherry pick

the dates, the 1970s cool period compared to recent warmer winters. Anyway,

the graph they show compares the recent winter to the undefined long term mean

which I assume is 1973-2010??     This year is almost as high as the late 1970s

but the data is up until February 13th. Not sure where we are at now. To me it shows

that the winter in the Great Lakes region at least is approaching the historic cold

of the late 1970s despite what the "adjusted (up)" temperatures show for DJF. 

 

attachicon.gifGreatLakesMaxIceCoverage73-2013 (1).jpg

 

They also mention in this article that it could have an effect on cooling into the

summer.... 

 

1970-1985 great lakes ice cover was colder than any other period of the 20th century in the great lakes.

 

I hate charts that start in the early 1970's, they create an artificial baseline of "Normal". 2000-2014 is more representative of normal in the great lakes, this year itself is a big statistical outlier and it wouldn't be fair to compare this alone to normal either.

 

Ice coverage in the 1930's to the 1960's was probably just as bad as many 1990's and a few 2000's winters.

 

 I suspect we will set a new record on March 1st for that dates ice coverage, barring any large wind events.

 

 

The last image doesn't include 2013-2014, which will significantly lower anomalies cooler.

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The data will show the NCDC climate region of "Upper Midwest" which is comprised of the states MN, IA, WI, and MI to have had a top 5 coldest winter on record when all is said and done. So this will support the near record lake ice conditions this year.

 

Through the end of January, this winter ranked 6th coldest on record since 1895 there...and February will knock out years such as 1983-1984 and 1976-1977...though 1935-1936 will come into the mix as they had a -16F departure February to leapfrog that year over many others into coldest winter on record territory.

 

But this region will easily qualify for "coldest winter since the 1970s"...in addition to probably less than 5 winters on record being colder than 2013-2014 for this region.

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Check the anomalies by next weekend, could have all time ice coverage record locked up. The wind will probably cause a temporary decline, but those open areas will just allow more heat to escape while the next vortex drops down and thickens the ice back up.

We had a 10% jump already. It was around 60% yesterday now up over 70% again. I think we could hit 90% by then end of the cold streak

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2v0fxjo.png

 

Just 4.5% away from the "all time" record and its March. This has to be a record for the first week of March but no doubt if you go back further than 1980 you will find it has happened several times. The record stat of 95% ice; when was that? I want to see an image like the one's available today and that chart that has the weekly records of ice coverage.

 

I laughed at the article stating that we "might" get to 62% ice coverage this winter season!!! :lmao:

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2v0fxjo.png

 

Just 4.5% away from the "all time" record and its March. This has to be a record for the first week of March but no doubt if you go back further than 1980 you will find it has happened several times. The record stat of 95% ice; when was that? I want to see an image like the one's available today and that chart that has the weekly records of ice coverage.

 

I laughed at the article stating that we "might" get to 62% ice coverage this winter season!!! :lmao:

 

Wonder how long we will see some ice on Lake Superior. I bet it lasts at least until early June, maybe even early July if it is a cool spring. 

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2v0fxjo.png

Just 4.5% away from the "all time" record and its March. This has to be a record for the first week of March but no doubt if you go back further than 1980 you will find it has happened several times. The record stat of 95% ice; when was that? I want to see an image like the one's available today and that chart that has the weekly records of ice coverage.

I laughed at the article stating that we "might" get to 62% ice coverage this winter season!!! :lmao:

There is a chart out there that shows it was more common to hit 70%+ during the 1970's, but like most of the Midwest, pre-1970's were warmer and the freeze over was equally uncommon.

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I doubt any survives the month of May, but we will find out.

 

I know on Hudson Bay ice can persist until August in the deeper southern end. So i would think some ice , not much, could survive on superior until at least early June. It depends on water depth. 

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Jim Cantore was on NBC Nightly news and they picked up on the amazing 90.5% ice coverage value. They said its only the 3rd time since 1963 which is when they started keeping records of ice coverage, that it got to 90% or over. They confirmed that this is the most ice since records began for so late in the season.

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Jim Cantore was on NBC Nightly news and they picked up on the amazing 90.5% ice coverage value. They said its only the 3rd time since 1963 which is when they started keeping records of ice coverage, that it got to 90% or over. They confirmed that this is the most ice since records began for so late in the season.

Temperatures were insanely below zero again up there this morning...minus 20s and even some minus 30s...more ice forms? Sun angle is working against it here...but wow...what a cold winter up there. 

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