Lake Michigan at record high levels.

https://twitter.com/TribuneKevin/status/1139526772070989825

Short video of water lapping on trail without any wind.

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Permalink Reply by Matt M. 18.5KM on June 14, 2019 at 8:14pm

Banks are overflowing.  Forced off the trail to the west side of LSD tonight.

Permalink Reply by dav on June 15, 2019 at 12:00am

It was way higher 10,000 years ago. There are markers in Lincoln Park.

Permalink Reply by Juan 2-3 or more mi. on June 15, 2019 at 11:30am

Ahh crap. Lake front property in peril :(

Permalink Reply by curt(is) locke on June 17, 2019 at 3:47am

Well, 13,000-11,000 years ago Lake Chicago (the predecessor to Lake Michigan) ran west to LaGrange and south to Homewood and Lansing. For what it's worth.

Permalink Reply by ketoguychicago on June 15, 2019 at 2:55pm

The cycles (not the kind we ride but of the lake levels) really are interesting to watch.  What we have now is a new old problem, while the problem while a few years ago was just the opposite - the lowest levels since federal agencies began monitoring water levels...

What really happens is this: More than recent year's rains on average, it goes up.  Less than usual, goes down.  More warm than recent winters it goes down, more cold than recent winters, it goes up due to curtailed winter evaporation when the lake is frozen over.  Less than usual ice with snow on it, lakes go down.  More than usual ice with snow on it, lakes go up because they evaporate less in spring and summer due to colder water temps which are due to warming sunlight being reflected away by the snow.   More wind, more evaporation, less wind, less, and so forth. 

All of these conditions ebb and flow.  Sometimes there's certain alignment that drives near or long term minimums and maximums.  It's all pretty interesting, but for us on the lake front, it isn't such a good thing at the moment.   And before it was low a few years ago, it was higher, and problematic then too, and made for dramatic video along the lake front trail and Lakeshore Drive:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3BgWG-9XAs

Permalink Reply by Phillip Hutchinson on June 17, 2019 at 3:38am

Yes, but not the one most people think of.

Hydrologically Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are the same body of water, and have the same water level.  The main outflow of the combined lakes is the St. Clair river to Lake Erie.

Permalink Reply by Phillip Hutchinson on June 17, 2019 at 3:49am

Agreed, it's very interesting to watch. There have been huge swings in the last few years. The long-term average is 578.84 feet (since 1918). 

The video of the cyclists being knocked down by waves was from a big storm in Sept. 2011, when the lake was at 577.85 feet, so slightly below average. Just a few years later in Jan. 2013 it was down to a record low of 576.02 feet. 

Last week, the lake hit 581.70 feet. Nearly 3 feet above average, and nearly 4 feet above what you saw in that 2011 video. The all time monthly average high is 582.35 feet, Oct 1986.

NOAA has some good info tracking lake levels on their website:

https://www.glerl.noaa.gov/data/dashboard/GLD_HTML5.html

Permalink Reply by lft_rat on June 19, 2019 at 6:03am

The water level is basically controlled by humans at Lake Erie. It's obviously influenced by the weather, but it's being higher or lower has everything to do with current management.

I researched this and climate change impacts before buying property here. :P

I highly recommend The Death and Life of the Great Lakes.

Permalink Reply by ketoguychicago on June 19, 2019 at 2:39pm

You meant to say Lake Ontario, yes?  From this article:

"Can the government control water levels?

There is no human regulation of water levels in Lake Erie, unlike in Lakes Superior and Ontario, at either end of the system, Mackey said. Ontario set records and suffered massive flooding last year.

Lake levels tend to be cyclical."

Here's the link.... or they may need to hear from you for correction? Thanks for the book recommendation. 

http://www.rockthelake.com/buzz/2018/06/lake-erie-water-levels-are-...

Permalink Reply by lft_rat on July 8, 2019 at 9:15am

Doh, yes, Ontario!

I got the book from the library and unfortunately can't do any sort of quick fact-checking. But the overwhelming point was that the outflow rates are all ongoing, highly imperfect engineering decisions (crudely adjusting for fluctuating erosion, sedimentation, etc.).

It's a bit trivial for the newspaper to report that lake levels are cyclical. Lots of things go up and down with autocorrelation at some seemingly consistent period (if you squint, anyway). That don't make it right.

Permalink Reply by ketoguychicago on July 8, 2019 at 2:07pm

:) Well they sure are vast and a lot to keep track of.  8 states or so touching them, plus Canada, a lot going on!  Taken as a group we could contend that the Great Lakes could be the 8th natural wonder of the world. 

Permalink Reply by lft_rat on July 8, 2019 at 3:55pm

Yeah, it's like almost any other large natural resource... horribly managed.

I recall a lot of the drama had to do with the dredging of the St Clair River, which seems very unstable in its outflows due to continued erosion and/or sedimentation.

One of the main organizations is the International Joint Commission (https://ijc.org/en) but the Lakes' larger political history is like any other sordid story, involving abuses of property rights and commons, some states deciding to dump some fish here, others there, etc.

It's appalling how much I've forgotten since I read the book. Oh well.

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