Great Lakes have the most ice in years amid prolonged cold spell
Frigid temperatures of late helped ice coverage surge above average across the Great Lakes
The recent spell of prolonged frigid temperatures across the Great Lakes helped push the region’s ice coverage to the highest level in years.
For some areas, current ice coverage is the greatest extent we’ve measured in about a decade.
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Data collected by NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL) reflected a significant surge in ice coverage across the Great Lakes over the past week.
Feb. 21 saw 52.2 per cent of the Great Lakes covered by ice, the most we’ve seen since 2022 and a value that's above the typical 40-45 per cent ice coverage we’d expect to see in the middle of February. Mid-February is right around when we would normally see the season’s peak ice coverage throughout the region.
This is the second rapid build-up of ice on the Great Lakes so far this season. A major cold snap in January went a long way toward building coverage this winter.
Lake Erie is leading the way in total ice, with 95.3 per cent of its surface covered as of Feb. 21. This is down very slightly from Thursday’s peak of 95.8 per cent.
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This is the most ice we’ve seen on Lake Erie since 2015. The shallowest of the five lakes, Erie is usually the first to build a significant crust of ice during the winter months.
Lake Huron scored a solid second place with 71.1 per cent ice coverage on Friday, which is the greatest percentage of lake ice here since 2019.
Chilling the water and building up ice on Lake Huron is important in cutting off snow squalls across southern Ontario’s traditional snowbelt communities. While it won’t completely shut down the process, the colder water temperatures and ice coverage can disrupt it to an extent.
Rounding out the totals includes 45.6 per cent coverage of Lake Superior, around 33.5 per cent surface ice on Lake Michigan, and just under one-quarter of Lake Ontario—24.0 per cent—covered with ice as of Feb. 21.
We’ve already surpassed last year’s maximum ice coverage of just 16 per cent, a value which placed the year among the bottom of the ranks since regular recordkeeping began back in 1973.