Far exceeds predictions
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Earlier in the season, forecasters predicted little more than 50% ice coverage this winter on Lake Superior. But as of Friday, the lake was more than 85% covered, far exceeding both the prediction and the lake’s long-term average of 55%, according to NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab (GLERL).
This year’s frigid conditions triggered the rapid ice expansion, said Jia Wang, a research ice climatologist and physical oceanographer at GLERL.
Winds, waves and temperature are the major factors contributing to the widespread ice coverage this year, said Joe Phillips, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service.
Thursday’s peak of 86% is nearly 10% higher than last year’s max coverage, and far exceeds the 2017 and 2018 levels of 1% and 56%, respectively.
With cold temperatures in the forecast, Wang expects 90% coverage could be reached this week.
Wang and Phillips emphasize that this would not necessarily be an historic event because ice coverage of 90% and above also occurred in 2015, 2014, 2009 and 2003.
Hmmm. Are those some of the years that we have supposedly endured historic global warming?
Thanks to Ron R. for this link
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March 6, 2019 at 07:07PM
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