As the Midwest experiences relatively mild temperatures at the moment, the effects of a past winter are still visible in the Great Lakes region well into spring. In early March of 2014, 11 years ago this week, an astonishing sight was captured by a visible satellite image over the Great Lakes. Lakes Erie, Huron, Michigan, and Superior appeared almost entirely covered in ice, with significant ice also present on parts of the usually ice-free Lake Ontario.
By March 6, 92% of the Great Lakes area was frozen, marking one of the highest ice cover percentages in over 50 years of recorded data, second only to mid-February 1979. Lake Michigan set a record for its highest ice coverage on March 8.
The formation of such a vast ice field required prolonged periods of extreme cold weather with multiple cold outbreaks, which was exactly what the winter of 2013-14 delivered. According to NOAA, this winter was one of the top 10 coldest October-March periods in five of the eight Great Lakes states, including Wisconsin (fourth coldest) and Michigan (fifth coldest). The winter of 2014 is also notable for popularizing the term “polar vortex” after a severe cold spell in January.
The lingering ice cover well into April affected shipping routes in the region. Additionally, the ice blanket reduced evaporation from the lakes, aiding in their recovery from record low water levels in 2013.
Jonathan Erdman, a senior meteorologist at weather.com, has been reporting on national and international weather events since 1996, with extreme and unusual weather phenomena being his main focus. Connect with him on Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter), and Facebook for more updates.
