WEST MICHIGAN — It doesn't take long for the ice coverage in the Great Lakes to rapidly change, given the right conditions.
For most of the early winter, temperatures were warmer than average and ice coverage on the lakes was almost nonexistent. Even as recently as January 1, overall ice coverage on the Great Lakes as a whole was just over 1%. Lake Michigan itself only had around 1% ice coverage.
Now, a total 180! Since the Arctic air blasted into the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes region last week, ice coverage has grown dramatically. Several days of the Arctic air sitting overhead with below-zero temperatures at night and single digits during the day allowed ice to quickly grow enough that some lakes have above average ice coverage.
Ice coverage on Lake Michigan is fairly high for this point in the year. Coverage grew from roughly 8% on January 17 to over 24% on January 25, the latest data available at this time. That's TRIPLE the ice coverage in just 9 days!
This graph and data, from NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, show the historical average of ice cover (red line) and this year's ice coverage (black line). You can see the big jump in ice coverage recently as the Arctic air was overhead. Average coverage for late January on Lake Michigan is around 18-19%.
Lake Erie is typically ices over the fastest since it's the shallowest lake. However even Lake Erie is well ahead of schedule in terms of ice coverage. It is typically around 40% ice covered at this point in the year but right now, it's double that at over 80% covered!
The Great Lakes as a whole are slightly above average for overall ice coverage (almost one-quarter total coverage) among the 5 lakes, but not by much.
Lakes Michigan and Erie are well above average in terms of ice cover, but Lakes Ontario and Huron are very close to average, and Lake Superior is well below average ice coverage. Lake Superior usually takes longer to ice over because it's the deepest lake. Factoring all of that in, it boils down to...slightly above average coverage.
The lakes' ice coverage increased quickly with the frigid air that was in place last week, but the opposite can happen too. If temperatures are too moderate for too long, the newly formed ice will melt and ice coverage will decrease. Peak ice coverage for the Great Lakes happens in late February/early March.
The next couple of weeks feature medium confidence of above average temperatures in the region for days 6-10 (above), and medium confidence in cooler than average temperatures for days 8-14 (below). There's still a lot of time to go to see what happens!
For the latest details on the weather in West Michigan, head to the FOX 17 Weather page.
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