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The Daily Bucket -- 2025 Winter Ice on the Great Lakes [1]
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Date: 2025-02-24
From my vantage point in southeast Michigan, I have a limited view of ice formation in the Great Lakes watershed. Specifically, Lake St. Clair, the Detroit River, and if I venture out a bit further, Lakes Huron and Erie. The past two weeks, we’ve had ice topped with snow, topped with ice, and topped with more snow. So I haven’t been out as much as I’d like, or as far as I’d like. But I did manage to take a trip recently to Belle Isle Park at the headwaters of the Detroit River, and Lake St. Clair Metropark.
I’m including this map not to show sturgeon spawning sites, but instead for context. Belle Isle is marked. Lake St. Clair Metropark is on the small landmass jutting into Lake St. Clair just to the right of Mt. Clemens.
The extended cold weather this winter has been good for lake ice. You can see from the title image that ice formation is below average, but at least headed in the right direction. I expect when the next set of data is posted at NOAA and the Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab that the graph will tick up a bit more before starting to fall. We’ve had sustained below freezing temps, which are forecast to finally go above freezing the last week of February.
Maps of lake ice, also as of February 16, 2025. For comparison, the lower left panel is last year. Zoom.
There is a huge difference among the Great Lakes in size, depth and volume. Lake Erie is the shallowest, so freezes over faster than the other lakes. Here’s a sequence of graphs for each of the lakes, starting at the top of the watershed:
Not being one of the Great Lakes, Lake St. Clair is not graphed separately. It is very shallow though, and the U.S. National Ice Center maps show that most of the surface is frozen. Not that I’d venture out, but the ice is thick enough to support fishing shanties. The only open water I saw was north of the metropark where the Clinton River empties into the lake.
Ice shanties at Anchor Bay in Lake St. Clair, viewed from Lake St. Clair Metropark.
Bald Eagle eyeing a duck raft at the mouth of the Clinton River. The limited open water means winter waterfowl congregate in large numbers.
Lake St. Clair at Anchor Bay, looking east across to Harsens Island.
Heading downstream to the Detroit River, there was open water on both sides of Belle Isle. But that water was in the form of narrow ribbons, likely where the water was moving the fastest. I did not see the large rafts of ducks that I’ve seen in the past. I’ve seen reports on a birding chat forum that there are huge numbers of waterfowl in the St. Clair River, which runs from Lake Huron to Lake St. Clair.
The headwaters of the Detroit River, looking northeast into Lake St. Clair. There are a few pockets of open water.
The view of the Detroit River from the southern end of Belle Isle, with the Ambassador Bridge in the background, Windsor Ontario on the left and Detroit on the right. In the past, I’ve seen lots of ducks in similar conditions and open water.
Close up of ice pushed ashore at Belle Isle. These sections were about eight inches thick, including the snow cover.
We midwesterners take whatever brightness in the winter landscape that we can get. Here, a male Northern Cardinal at the Belle Isle Nature Center is floofed up against the single digit temps.
NOW IT’S YOUR TURN. WHAT’S HAPPENING IN NATURE IN YOUR AREA?
THE DAILY BUCKET IS A NATURE REFUGE. WE AMICABLY DISCUSS ANIMALS, WEATHER, CLIMATE, SOIL, PLANTS, WATERS AND NOTE LIFE’S PATTERNS.
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