Great Lakes HIGH water levels

[Tetepare]

Originally Posted by LittleWing77

I wish I could post the IJC Webinar from Friday, April 3rd. Will go back to the link and see if they've made it public yet...

LittleWing77

It was already posted. It’s the most recent new thread in this sub forum. https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...-a-232503.html

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by Tetepare

The week of 07- 14 April the water at my dock off Lake Ontario rose 2.5”. Haven’t measured since then but I’m sure it’s risen.

There was a big jump around then, but the rise has slowed dramatically since then and last week it stayed pretty much level. Once the few days of heavy west winds calmed down and stopped pushing extra water from Lake Erie, the rise slowed. Plus the Ottawa River is settling down from its spring freshet, so outflows climbed significantly last week.

Things are still not great, but a lot better than they were looking a few weeks ago.

[GordMay]

IJC Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Water Levels Webinar on Friday, April 3
➥ https://www.ijc.org/en/ijc-lake-onta...friday-april-3

The International Joint Commission held a webinar on Friday to discuss what can be done to help decrease the risk of flooding this year.
IJC US Commissioner and Chair Jane Corwin stated to the audience of over 1,000, they have released record levels of water each month so far this year but there is still some uncertainty this year as to how bad the flooding potential could be because of the weather over the next two months.
Corwin stated Plan 2014 was created to minimize extremes on the waterway but with so much water in the system, they are unable to stop flooding.
More ➥ https://www.quintenews.com/2020/04/03/233145/

Webinar ➥ https://vimeo.com/405122591

[Kurplunk]

Originally Posted by LittleWing77

Okay, here's link, but when I click on it, it still comes up (for me) as "registered attendee" , which makes me think that if you weren't registered, this link won't work.
(Hope that's not the case, though.)

The Webinar was 30 minutes of information and 1 hour of questions.

https://register.gotowebinar.com/rec...LRECORDINGLINK

Good luck! LittleWing77

Thank you LW77 for this post.
The link worked fine for me. Good info all together.

[LittleWing77]

Originally Posted by Kurplunk

Thank you LW77 for this post.
The link worked fine for me. Good info all together.

Oh good. And you're most welcome!

I thought the most interesting question was how long it takes a drop of water from Lake Superior to make its way through the system:
**two years**!!

So we're not only dealing with this year's precipitation, but the precipitation from two years ago...

Blows my mind!
LittleWing77

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by LittleWing77

Oh good. And you're most welcome!

I thought the most interesting question was how long it takes a drop of water from Lake Superior to make its way through the system:
**two years**!!

So we're not only dealing with this year's precipitation, but the precipitation from two years ago...

Blows my mind!
LittleWing77

Lake Superior Facts

Yup. It's big. Was my stomping grounds for many years. Here's another mind blower. It takes the 190 years to completely cycle the all its water (based on the typical outflow). Lake Superior contains as much water as all the other Great Lakes combined, even throwing in two extra Lake Eries. It accounts for 10% of the planet's surface fresh water.

BIG.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

BIG.

and COLD.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

and COLD.

Very true. I think the annual average surface temperature is somewhere around 4ºC. Although in the summer it can get up to as warm as 15ºC -- at least until the wind starts churning things up .

And don't dive too far down, even it if does feel kinda warm at the surface. It's a pretty thin layer of relative warmth.

[GordMay]

Average Surface Water Temperature from the Great Lakes Surface Environmental Analysis (GLSEA)
➥ https://coastwatch.glerl.noaa.gov/statistic/

The Surface Temperature gets up to around 15-16 Deg C, In September.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Average Surface Water Temperature from the Great Lakes Surface Environmental Analysis (GLSEA)...

Oh sure, go ahead and be all "informative" with actual "facts" there Gordy . But who's included graphic is more fun .

Since we're on a Lake Superior drift here, another no-so-fun fact is that Superior is warming faster than any of the other Great Lakes.

https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2018/1...pidly-warming/

And I've always liked this GL projection to put them into some sort of scale:

[SuW]

Speaking of monitoring water levels, we have to thank one US Federal agency:

https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/st...tml?id=8311030

Especially if you want the raw data every 6 mins or so!

[LakeSuperior]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Since we're on a Lake Superior drift here, another no-so-fun fact is that Superior is warming faster than any of the other Great Lakes.

https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2018/1...pidly-warming/

[/IMG]

Mike with all due respect this article is so bad, vague, and misleading that it is almost criminal. I don't want to offer a list of the technical reasons why because it takes too much time to respond to each point but be warned.

One can consider that the Superior top column water temperature responds to the seasonal weather variations. To first order it is reset during each moderate winter. The base lower column will remain unchanged in our lifetimes.

Let it be known that Superior has frozen over nearly completely (~equal to 80% or more) in the last few years nearly back to back (2014, 2015, 2018 and 2019). High amounts of ice cover inhibit winter evaporation which sometimes amounts to over a foot of water lost. Minimal evaporation contributes greatly to the high water observed in Superior.

Also, in 2018 most of the significant amount snow that year was from out of basin storms rather than lake effect. Consequently, the melt water was additive to the water level rather than replenishment.

Note that high ice cover equates to little lake effect snow in the basin.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by LakeSuperior

Mike with all due respect this article is so bad, vague, and misleading that it is almost criminal. I don't want to offer a list of the technical reasons why because it takes too much time to respond to each point but be warned.
...

Sorry, I didn't mean to start a climate change rabbit hole.

[Tetepare]

Does that mean Superior will remain unswimmable during our lifetime?

I feel awful come late August when we on Ontario are playing in the water, and I think of Superior sailors wearing fleece.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Tetepare

Does that mean Superior will remain unswimmable during our lifetime?

I hope so .

That said, we used to go swimming on occasion in the heat of summer. Mostly it was just a quick, and brisk, bath. But if it was hot and calm for a few days the surface water and more shallow inlets can actually warm up to a comfortable temperature.