Nearly half of Lake Michigan is now frozen making for this spectacular image taken by NOAA.
Grand Traverse Bay Freezes, Lake Michigan Half Frozen
The bay used to freeze every eight or nine years out of 10 until the 1990s when it dropped off sharply. Grand Traverse Bay has not frozen completely since 2009.
Most of Lake Michigan’s main basin is open water still and from the Leelanau Peninsula to Indiana ice stretches out from the shore into the lake three to five miles.
Lakes Huron and Superior are about 70 percent covered with ice. Lake Erie is almost entirely frozen. Erie freezes quickly because it is shallow. Lake Michigan is deeper than Huron and much of the surface of Lake Michigan’s main basin is at more southern latitudes. Huron’s ice cover includes Georgian Bay and the North Channel and these waters freeze early.
Here is a map from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that estimates the ice cover as of Tuesday:
