Frozen great lakes

Here was the story I included in last Saturday's Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Another possible HIV cure) on Daily Kos.

LiveScience: Almost Completely Frozen, Great Lakes Near Record
By Becky Oskin, Staff Writer
March 05, 2014 05:32pm ET

Overall, winters may become milder as the planet warms, but this season has been a stunningly cold outlier for eastern North America. Case in point? The frozen Great Lakes.

Yesterday (March 4), the Great Lakes hit 91 percent ice cover, according to the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory. That's the most ice since the record of 94.7 percent was set in 1979, the lab said in a statement.

Except for Lake Ontario, nearly all the Great Lakes are frozen stiff, just like everyone on the East Coast. In fact, if the months of below-normal temperatures and freezing winds persist, the Great Lakes could meet or break their 1979 record, the lab said. The ice hasn't been this widespread since 1994, when 90.4 percent of the Great Lakes were under ice. The average ice cover is usually just above 50 percent, and only occasionally passes 80 percent, according to the lab.

By Saturday, Lake Michigan set a new record.

Lake Michigan's ice cover has set a record.

The federal government's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor reports that ice spread across 93.29 percent of the lake's surface area on Saturday. That eclipsed the previous high of 93.1 percent in 1977.

And that's as frozen as it will likely get, as the Free Press story reported that Lake Michigan is now only 77% ice covered.

Just the same, it's still winter and the ships have to go through, as WXYZ reports in Breaking the ice.


BTW, today is not a snow day for me.  It's time for me to dig out and go to work.