For Lake Michigan, Less is More (at least right now)!
Posted on January 15, 2021
So, who would like to hear some good news, you know, just for a change of pace? We know we sure would. So we were pretty happy to read that water levels in the Great Lakes are finally starting to recede a bit from the record highs we’ve been seeing recently.
This is really fantastic news for Lake Michigan and Lake Huron in particular, which have been at the highest water state of all the Great Lakes as compared to average this past year (as a reminder, Michigan and Huron are measured as one lake when it comes to water levels, as they are joined at the Straits of Mackinac). The result of those record high waters has been that these two lakes have had the most striking and destructive shoreline erosion last year too, as we here on our little piece of the Michigan coast know all too well.
Just in the past month, Lake Michigan/Huron has dropped a full three inches, and is now six inches lower than it was this time last year. The main reason this is happening is a lack of precipitation this winter. Also helping? The lake hasn’t really been freezing over. Now, you might think this is because ice cover limits evaporation on the water’s surface. That’s true to an extent, but more important is the amount of ice cover in the previous year. The more the lake freezes, the colder the water will be the following summer, which delays the evaporation season (late fall/early winter) in that year. So that means the lack of ice last winter means more evaporation this year (remember when we talked about how warm the water was this summer?).
According to MLive meteorologist Mark Torregrossa, Michigan/Huron water levels are predicted to drop another inch in the next month, possibly two inches if our dry spell continues. Check out this water level forecast:
If this holds, the most likely water level this summer will be nine inches lower than last summer, which hopefully means less damage to our dwindling shoreline. And we are so here for that!