Climate

Great Lakes ice cover surpasses 88 percent

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Ice cover on the Great Lakes reached 88 percent this month for the first time in a decade, according to NASA’s Earth Observatory. Since 1973, average ice cover of the lakes has been just more than 50 percent. It has only exceeded 80 percent five times in the past 40 years. This image of the Great Lakes was taken by NASA’s Aqua satellite on February 19, 2014. NASA reported that NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory put ice cover at just over 80 percent.

Climate

How much snow does it take to close school?

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Great Lakes school administrators are among those who hold out the longest before closing schools for snow, according to this map of how many inches trigger such an action. Any snow – in fact, any prediction of snow – triggers closings in the south, according to mapmaker Alexandr Trubetskoy, who recently posted the map to Reddit. That doesn’t necessarily mean administrators in the south are wimps. Areas without much snow also don’t have much snow removal equipment. Trubetskoy identified himself as a high school student from Vienna, Va., in a Reddit message to Great Lakes Echo.

Climate

Seven of the snowiest campuses in the nation, right here in the Great Lakes basin

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Seven of the 10 snowiest college campuses across the nation are in the Great Lakes states, according to a list recently released by Accuweather. Blame that lake effect for making winters in our parts exceptionally snowy. As cold air gusts across the lakes, it meets the warm air rising off the water, creating lots of snow by the time the mixture hits the shore. Campuses in the region hold the top five and the eighth and ninth slots on Accuweather’s list. They even beat out the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Climate

Photo Friday: Ice atop Lake Erie

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When last week’s snowstorm and cold spell made its way through the Great Lakes, nearly 90 percent of Lake Erie froze over, according to the NASA Earth Observatory. The colorized picture above shows ice (pale blue) and snow (blue-green) formed on top of the lake. A report by Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at Wunderground.com, showed that these high levels of ice coverage had not been seen on the Great Lakes since January 1994.

Climate

Ice forming along Chicago River

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The Chicago River just west of where it enters Lake Michigan with what is known as  brash ice, floating fragments of ice usually less than two meters across. Image: Greg Monahan

Climate

Photo Friday: Warm Great Lakes clash with frigid air to produce steam fog

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This color-enhanced picture from the NASA Earth Observatory shows how the cold air moving across warmer waters of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior during this week’s arctic storm transformed water vapor into steam fog. NASA says one of its satellites on  Jan. 6 captured the data used here to illustrate the difference between snow (bright orange), water clouds (white), and mixed clouds (peach). Here’s what steam fog looked like near Chicago and from the ground view.