News and Events at the ESL
ESL Imagery Shows Seriously Frozen Great Lakes
Images from the ESL published in the St.Bernard Parish Post
Louisiana State Climatologist, Dr. Barry Keim, recently used two ESL images in his weekly weather column in the St. Bernard Parish Post to show the extent of ice cover on the Great Lakes. Dr. Keim writes that:
a significant proportion of the Great Lakes surface is now frozen. NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory indicates that the Great Lakes ice cover is currently (February 19th) at 80 percent, with Lakes Superior, Huron, and Erie are almost completely frozen over. Lakes Michigan and Ontario still have large portions of their surfaces as open water.
This provides additional evidence as to how cold this winter has been. For comparison, the maximum extent of ice coverage for Lake Superior last winter was about 40%, while Lake Huron was 46 percent, and 84 percent for Lake Erie. Despite how cold our Louisiana winter has been this year, we can still rejoice in the fact that our Great Lakes - Pontchartrain, Maurepaus, Lery, Borgne, and Salvador – are all unfrozen and await Louisiana’s fishermen.
This provides additional evidence as to how cold this winter has been. For comparison, the maximum extent of ice coverage for Lake Superior last winter was about 40%, while Lake Huron was 46 percent, and 84 percent for Lake Erie. Despite how cold our Louisiana winter has been this year, we can still rejoice in the fact that our Great Lakes - Pontchartrain, Maurepaus, Lery, Borgne, and Salvador – are all unfrozen and await Louisiana’s fishermen.
You can read Dr. Keim's weekly weather column in the St. Bernard Parish Post.
You can download the column here.
Published: February 26, 2014
