It's been a very mild winter for the most part across the Great Lakes Region.
Temperatures are up, snowfall is down and if you like winter sports, everyone from skiers to ice fishermen are not happy.
Speaking of ice fishing, the pastime is somewhat tenuous this year since there is so little ice on the Great Lakes.
Average ice concentration on the Great Lakes during the first week of February
Ice concentration for this year. As you can see, there is very little ice on the Great Lakes so far this year.
Great Lakes Ice Cover - Feb 2012
For the most part the concentrations are just a bit behind what we normally would see, with the exception of Lake Erie.
We will take a closer look at Lake Erie to see why it develops so much ice cover by early February and what it looks like this year.
We decided to look at Lake Erie for a couple of reasons.
Oh, I know it is the farthest south of the Great Lakes and you would think it should freeze up the latest.
However, it is the shallowest of the Great Lakes and therefore it has the least volume of water by far of any Great Lake.
Therefore it tends to cool down and develop ice more quickly than any of the other lakes.
Lake Erie: Where's the Ice?
This image, courtesy of NASA LANCE program, is a beautiful look at Lake Erie from February 1st, 2012, with the only ice at the very shallow west end of the lake.
Compare this image from February 3rd, 2011 when the entire lake was frozen over.
Lake Erie: There's the Ice (in 2011)
This begs the next question, "If Lake Erie has so little ice cover, does it mean that we will get a lot more lake effect snow when cold air comes down across the lake?" Well, this is a tricky one because the whole process is a bit self-defeating.
See, if you bring arctic air across shallow Lake Erie, it might produce a significant lake-effect snow storm, but the presence of arctic air will cause the shallow lake to cool and eventually develop ice cover.
No Ice on the Great Lakes
