Great Lakes ice coverage falls 71 percent over 40 years

Originally posted by OldCorp
reply to post by soficrow

 

My brother-in-law is a commercial fisherman on Lake Huron, and they have been having a hard time catching enough fish to operate the boat. The water levels in the lakes are LOW LOW LOW. Just across the road from me is a marsh, that 20 years ago was a bay and small boat harbor. Boy, the people that bought million dollar waterfront homes are PISSED!

I'll see if I can get out tomorrow and take some pics.

I often spend the season working at a fishing camp on georgian bay off lake huron canadian side which other then weather pressure has the same water level as lake huron
This is a club owned by Americans
it has been there for over 130 years

I operate a highspeed drop gate barge in the 30 thousand islands 30 million shoals area
and man you have to be carefull because the water is three to four feet below chart depth
the high water mark is three to four feet above and you can see it on all the rocks to (algea marks on granite)




if the upload works
those barges are thirty footers and those are 7 foot boards a foot out of water skirting the doc in the back ground
and at high water they are a couple inches out of the water ,
the water was a weather highpressure that day..and in a low pressure the water can still drop a foot and a lalf from there
the brown on the reeds shows the hi water mark in a real hi pressure weather system
the hinge doors are well over 7 foot for scale

the rest of the docks are floating docks

Here's another reason why Lake Huron's water levels may be dropping fast:

An excess of 2.5 billion gallons of water a day is rushing out of the Michigan-Huron Great Lakes system because of a growing “drain hole” in the St. Clair River, said a Georgian Bay group earlier this week.

The change in water flow may be occurring because of past navigation dredging, riverbed mining and shoreline alteration on the St. Clair River near Port Huron, Mich. and Sarnia, said Mary Muter of the Georgian Bay Association (GBA). This has caused Lake Huron’s water level to be four inches below the level it was at last year, she said.

www.canada.com...

Now they're thinking of putting in 'water barriers'

Water levels in the upper Great Lakes could be raised by placing gates, dikes or inflatable barriers in the St. Clair River at a cost of up to $225 million, a new report says.

www.theobserver.ca...

Since the upper great lakes (Superior, Michigan and Huron) drain through the St. Clair River, then it follows that the lower Great Lakes (Erie & Ontario) should be rising, right?

Boaters and shippers will be happy to know water levels for Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River are expected to be at their long-term averages this summer, while Lake Erie will be eight centimetres above normal, according to national experts who released predictions this week

Read more: www.windsorstar.com...

Water levels on Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, and Lake St.Clair are above their all-time average for this time of year and are above the level of Chart Datum.

www.waterlevels.gc.ca...&a/bulletin_e.html

OK... so what's the bottom line here?

Water levels are on the rise in Lake Huron and Georgian Bay thanks to heavy winter snowfall and plentiful spring rain.

But some groups say the upper lakes still drain too quickly through the St. Clair River and now's the time to stem the flow.

Levels of Lake Huron and Lake Michigan are two centimetres higher than last year at this time, but are still 34 cm under the historical average for this time of year, said Chuck Southam, an Environment Canada water-level expert.
www.owensoundsuntimes.com...

I call the St Claire dredging operation the main culprit, the recent ice free winters another and drought on the prairies the last. Bottom line is that it's climate change and that whether it's AWG or not is like arguing with a Canada Goose over which is the best lawn grass. They're gonna eat it anyways.

Originally posted by butcherguy
Oh yeah Zorgon, I can't see the right side of the graph. What's the current high?]

Slider bar under the image or right click view image

Originally posted by soficrow

You guys are such major woosies. I grew up on the Canadian prairies - still think 10 below Celsius is warm. ...It's perfectly possible to survive in cold climates - but a bit of education and prep time is essential.

I lived in Winnipeg for 6 years... your breath turned to ice crystals There is a small town outside Winnipeg that has a huge thermometer. Its claim to fame is that it recorded the coldest temperature on Earth..

Now I live in Vegas. Outside Vegas is a town that has a huge thermometer... it's claim to fame is that it routinely records the hottest temperature on Earth

So who ya calling a WUSS

reply to post by zorgon

Slider bar under the image or right click view image

I am on an iPad, your graph has no slider showing for me, and I haven't learned how to right click with this machine.

I still don't know what the current high is.

reply to post by zorgon

So who ya calling a WUSS

I really did. Thanks for that one.

PS. The coldest town with the thermometer is Wawa - in Ontario and on the road to Toronto. Got caught there once while hitchhiking - intolerable. So my friend and I jumped a freight. One of my life's true adventures.

reply to post by Danbones


Danbones, we must literally be neighbours. Was looking at the ice on a river just north of me this weekend, and, by what I see, the ice will, I bet you, be out by April 1 this year, when usually it's April 15ish. It's been hard winter for our local tourism outfitters. Me, I'm just hoping there will be enough water for me to run our river out to Georgian Bay this summer in my boat. It might be a good thing I got myself a jet-ski last summer.