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Mark Torregrossa November 24, 2014 Ice is already starting to develop on Michigan's Great Lakes. This is the earliest ice on some of the Great Lakes in at least 40 years. According to the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, on November 20, 2014, three of Michigan's Great Lakes had ice starting to form. Lake Superior and Lake Michigan were one-half percent ice covered, while Lake Huron had one percent ice. Lake Erie was not reporting any ice as of Nov. 20, 2014. Decent early season ice coverage records date back to 1973. Last Friday was the earliest date that all...

Lake Michigan and Lake Huron water levels may do something only achieved four times in the last 154 years. This time of year is normally the season when Great Lakes lake levels begin to fall. Typically evaporation is greater than precipitation and runoff from rivers and streams. So there is normally less water going into Lakes Michigan, Huron, and Superior at this time of year. On Lakes Michigan-Huron July is typically the high water month. Lake Superior usually sees peak water level in July or August. This year is different. Lakes Michigan-Huron, and Lake Superior have continued to rise, even...

A little over one year ago, The New York Times and USA Today were reporting that the Great Lakes hit all time lows in water levels. According to those reports, Lake Huron and Lake Michigan were 29 inches below their average measurements taken since 1918. Scientists warned communities that they could only expect more tragedy with the Great Lakes. With a lack of rain from climate change, they told everyone to expect levels to continue to drop. In an April 2013 report from the International Joint Commission, a group with members from the United States and Canada that advises on...

A little over one year ago, The New York Times and USA Today were reporting that the Great Lakes hit all time lows in water levels. According to those reports, Lake Huron and Lake Michigan were 29 inches below their average measurements taken since 1918. Scientists warned communities that they could only expect more tragedy with the Great Lakes. With a lack of rain from climate change, they told everyone to expect levels to continue to drop.

"A wet spring, and heavy winter snows, also raised lake levels. So, what's ahead? Researcher Olga Lyandres of the Alliance for the Great Lakes said that it's difficult to say, but fluctuations are a sign of a healthy ecosystem. “The most recent models suggest that it could either rise or fall, compared to the long term average,” said Lyandres."

Spring seems to be taking forever to arrive, but we are not really seeing the worst of the late spring. The Great Lakes, and Lake Superior is holding on to their ice. As a result the freighters that normally travel the Great Lakes are having their fair share of problems. This has been a very long winter season, beginning with the Great Lakes freezing on December 6th, not allowing Northwest Indiana steel mills to stockpile materials. Glen Nekvasil, vice president for Lake Carriers' Association explained that lake freighters are struggling to make the voyage across Lake Superior despite the thick...

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- U.S. and Canadian Coast Guard crews kept up their battle Monday to clear pathways for vessels hauling vital raw materials on the ice-clogged Great Lakes, where a shipping logjam forced a weeklong shutdown of the nation's largest steel factory. Traffic remained largely at a crawl after a winter that produced some of the heaviest ice on record across the five inland seas, where more than half the surface area remained solid this week. Icebreaking ships slogging across Lake Superior were still encountering ice layers 2 feet to 3 feet thick. In some areas, wind and wave action...

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama reined in funding for restoration of the Great Lakes in his budget released this week, spurring a backlash among environmentalists from Minnesota and a half dozen other states. Obama's budget proposal for fiscal 2015 slashes $25 million from the current funding level for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which has supported dozens of projects in Minnesota aimed at controlling and monitoring pollutants and preserving and restoring fish and wildlife habitats in Lake Superior. The president's budget cuts another $430 million from the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, which helps communities repair wastewater infrastructure to prevent...

On Thursday, March 6th, 2014, we attempted something that hasn’t been done for 40 years: to hike the treacherous ice across the Manitou Passage to the islands 8 miles out... (click the link for commentary and photos of a bold day of hiking)

Lake Ontario is the only major holdout, and the forecast there is for extreme cold during the next two weeks. (more images and comments at the link)

From the bridge of the Coast Guard cutter Mackinaw, northern Lake Huron looks like a vast, snow-covered field dotted with ice slabs as big as boulders - a battleground for the icebreaker's 58-member crew during one of the roughest winters in memory... As of Thursday, ice cover extended across 88 percent,... At Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in Wisconsin, the rock-solid cover has allowed around 35,000 visitors to trudge miles over Lake Superior to explore caves featuring dazzling ice formations. It's the first time in five years the lake surface has been firm enough to allow passage.... Coast Guard icebreaker teams,...

(CNSNews.com) – Lake Superior hasn’t completely frozen over in two decades. But an expert on Great Lakes ice says there’s a “very high likelihood” that the three-quadrillion-gallon lake will soon be totally covered with ice thanks to this winter’s record-breaking cold. The ice cover on the largest freshwater lake in the world hit a 20-year record of 91 percent on Feb. 5, 1994. ...

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Shocking statistics surfacing about record busting, low water levels in America’s Great Lakes make no mention of the sale of fresh water supplies by private companies to China, or of President Obama’s executive order and the legal loophole which is allowing these sales. “Two of the Great Lakes have hit their lowest water levels EVER RECORDED” the US Army Corps of Engineers reported early this year. (1) Corps measurements taken in January of 2013 “show Lake Huron and Lake Michigan have reached their lowest ebb since record keeping began in 1918.” The chief watershed hydrology expert warns Americans, “We’re in...

LAKE SUPERIOR- November 10th marks the day that the S. S. Edmund Fitzgerald sank on Lake Superior in 1975 with 29 souls on board.

This idea was brought to my attention the other day and thought it a great choice for a thread. Most of us who are US Navy fans can certainly recall the Navy's efforts to train their pilots on the Great Lakes (Lake Michigan) in the early 40's during the war. This thread may give you a nice idea of what that exersize was all about. Many interesting images to study here and quite possibly of interest to those who are involved with the restoration of aircraft that have been recovered from the Lakes. I have also included a page from...

Almost 100 years after the Henry B. Smith freighter went down during a November storm in Lake Superior, a group of shipwreck hunters thinks it has found the ship - and much of it is largely intact. The group found the wreck last month in about 535 feet of water off the shore of Marquette, Mich., according to the Duluth News Tribune. The group says it hasn't seen the name of the ship on the wreck yet, but all signs indicate it's the Smith, sitting amid a spilled load of iron ore. "It's the most satisfying find of my shipwreck-hunting...

Barack Obama is keeping his promise to lower the sea levels, and he’s starting with the drought plagued Midwest where Lake Michigan water is being shipped by the boat loads over to China! By using a little known loophole in the 2006 Great Lakes Compact, Obama minions are allowing Nestle Company to export precious fresh water out of Lake Michigan to the tune of an estimated $500,000 million to $1.8 million per day profit. By draining the precious jewel of the Great Lakes in the middle of America, our federal water managers are allowing the export of our water out...

On July 4, 1960, the Eugene (Ore.) Register-Guard rang in Independence Day with a dire Associated Press report by one Norma Gauhn headlined “American Dialects Disappearing.” The problem, according to “speech experts,” was the homogenizing effect of “mass communications, compulsory education, [and] the mobility of restless Americans.” These conformist pressures have only intensified in the half-century since the AP warned “that within four generations virtually all regional U.S. speech differences will be gone.” And so as we enter the predicted twilight of regional American English, it’s no surprise that publications as venerable as the Economist now confirm what our collective...

Lampreys from Great Lakes destined for queen's pie DETROIT — A few unwanted, invasive sea lampreys from the Great Lakes have been shipped to England for use in a traditional pie for Queen Elizabeth II. The Detroit Free Press reports (http://on.freep.com/IdmZkP) the City of Gloucester, which has given the pie as a gift to the monarch since the Middle Ages, requested the eel-like creatures from the Great Lakes Fishery Commission because they're a protected species in England. The pie is for June's Diamond Jubilee, the 60th anniversary of the queen's ascent to the throne. Commission spokesman Marc Gaden shipped 2...