CLEVELAND, Ohio – There hasn’t been much ice on Lake Erie this year, bringing disappointment to those who like to drill holes in the frozen surface to catch fish, but probably a bit of relief to the U.S. Coast Guard that occasionally rescues stranded anglers.
On Monday, less than a half percent of Lake Erie was covered with ice compared to 87.3% on the same date last year, according to data kept by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
A cold snap increased coverage to more than 7% by Tuesday, still dramatically less than the same day last year when the lake’s ice coverage peaked for the season at 93.8%. By Wednesday, cold temperatures had incrased ice coverage to 11.45%.
James Kessler, physical scientist at NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab in Ann Arbor, Michigan, said he didn’t want to predict how much ice coverage might increase over the next several days of colder temperatures, but that it could reach 30%.
The region has been experiencing warmer and shorter winters in recent years, Kessler said. The average date for maximum ice coverage on Lake Erie is Feb. 10, while maximum ice coverage has been declining on average by about 5% per decade.
Kessler said that atmospheric scientists would attribute the region’s warming trend to climate change.
When Lake Erie is free of ice, it makes it more likely to produce lake effect snow, which is when cold air pulls moisture off the open lake that transitions into snow after it gets over land.
Cleveland is well-acquainted with lake effect snow, and while it has experienced little of it this year, Buffalo has been hammered.
Kessler said it’s hard to correlate the amount of ice coverage with the chance of lake effect snow because there are several factors involved, such as where the ice is forming, how long the air spends over the lake and the direction it’s heading.
Lake Erie freezes and thaws more quickly than the other four Great Lakes because it is much shallower and retains less heat, Kessler said.
Ice coverage on Lake Erie reached just above 23% in lake December before succumbing to a warm January.
Lake Erie experienced its lowest maximum coverage over the past 50 years in 1998 when coverage was 5.4%. Other relatively low coverage maximums in recent years were 15.9% in 2020, 35.5% in 2017 and 13.9 in 2012.
A satellite photo of Lake Erie ice coverage at 10:47 a.m. on Feb. 1, 2022,