Great Lakes Water Levels On The Rise After Years Of Decline
By Chuck Sudo in News on Jul 7, 2014 7:30PM
Here is some good news to come from the brutal winter we endured. The heavy snowpacks have contributed to a resounding bounce back in water levels across the Great Lakes after years of record lows brought on by hot weather and droughts.
Water levels along Lakes Michigan and Huron have risen 2 ½ feet from a record low of 576.02 feet in January 2013. The rise in the water levels was spurred by the heavy snowpacks from The Winter That Would Not End, followed by heavy rains this spring.
Keith Kompoltowicz, chief of watershed hydrology for the Army Corps of Engineers Detroit District, told the Chicago Tribune the snowpack along the Michigan Basin was at its highest in nearly 10 years—30 percent higher, to be exact. The heavy rains of the past two months have also helped replenish ponds and lagoons across the Chicago area. The higher water totals have replenished wetlands, made it easier for commercial shipping to traverse the Great Lakes without the need for dredging and recreational boaters to launch their boats into the lake.
This was all expected once spring arrived to thaw out the lakes, which at one point were 90 percent covered in ice. As recently as April, 48 percent of the Great Lakes remained frozen and it wasn’t until June 7 that the world’s largest freshwater reserve was declared ice-free. The Lake Michigan-Huron water levels had been dropping for the past 14 years prior to the rebound.