Off Topic Water levels backing off the record highs

jrr

jrr

Well-Known Member
Water level is dropping:

www.mlive.com

All Great Lakes going down quickly, distancing from last year’s record water levels

With dry conditions in February, here's the latest on Great Lakes water levels.
www.mlive.com www.mlive.com

We needed a mild winter to drop the water levels and the cycle says we were due for one. We had it. Levels are backing off the high mark. Hopefully the beaches will be a little bigger this year! Soon we will be complaining about it being too low.
 
Couldn’t believe how low Lake Ontario was today when I seen it.
 
I don't want to see anyones property damaged so I hope it stays around average, but it sure was nice getting the boat in places that were way too shallow in past years. Also nice just motoring across the sand bars that were under 4 fow. Let's just hope it stops receding once it hits average.

I was pointing out to my wife the last few summers that the sandblasted skegs and props were a relic of the past.
 
The great lakes have a historical high/low cycle so I would expect it to get crazy low in the next 3-7 years. The average is just the average... not the real level ;) What we don't know yet is if global warming makes it it extremely low or if the 'wetter great lakes' forecast means higher water even in a low cycle.

I do feel bad about the property damage but then again there was a reason no one settled on the shoreline until in the last 30ish years. Great Lakes shorelines are always changing. Super interesting history of old tourism spots around the Soo when steam ships and trains would bring people up. But barely any idea how that worked given how much the shoreline has changed.
 
Just going by memory and experience. Havn't looked up the actual chart data for this post.
We bought a cottage that had been compremized by Lake Erie in 1985. The cottage is at Port Bruce/ Waneeta Beach. The last record high was in 1986. Spent the next 4 to 6 years protecting it from the high water conditions even though the water was receeding ever so slowly. Had to do intermittant protection over the nexr 25 years such as installing a steel wall and adding erosion blocks in front of the wall.
The lake level started to become a porblem again about 5 years ago, with new record highs in 2018, 2019 and 2020. We all had to reinforce or peplace our walls during the last 3 years. Major expence.
The point I am trying to make is the last high, to lo, to high cycle was 35 years long. I fully expect that we will be fighting high water levles for the next few years if this cycle is anything like the last one in duration. The good news is that when we bought the cottage in 1985 we wanted to get 10 years out of it and we still have it. Patience and expence have pervailed. Just don't expect these high levels to back off soon. Lake Superior is full and coming our way.
 
I go on my uncles old place near Franklin Island on Georgian Bay. We use his little bay in the late 80s and early 90s... started to dry up into the late 90s and was not useful in the early 2000s and then totally dry. He passed away a few years ago when the water starting coming back and my aunt sold 2 years ago with a bay you could bring a boat in. Pretty sure everyone on the bay has been selling in the last year or three.

Thank goodness for the US Army Corp of Engineers:


and

Water Level Data

www.lre.usace.army.mil

It doesn't look like Lake Superior is anywhere near as full as last year -- it had very little ice which means a lot of evaporation... which is moving far more water than what flows through the Soo.
 
packrat said:
actually the level was a lot lower last fall----at least in Hamilton Harbor----could get into spots that had been under? water most of the year
Click to expand...
Wonder what the charts say. 80% of my fishing is the harbor. Don’t remember it being this low.
 
Just looking at the lake erie data.
Screen Shot 2021-03-07 at 11.17.06 PM.png
i don't what the guys at Turkey Point Marina would do if they saw Lake Erie levels like that. They were loosing their minds over the last couple of years but now is not as high or for as long as compared to that.

This is now:

Screen Shot 2021-03-07 at 11.20.06 PM.png
 
For those of us that remember the mid 80's we used to come back in from fishing and the K-car my buddy drove had water on the floor more than a few times. We parked and launched at the public old cut spot in those days. My wife and I had a camper van and woke up more than a few times surrounded by water at the new park. The old guys used to tell us stories and the high water days in their youth.

 
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It is interesting to look at the records kept of lake levels but in reality we are only seeing a small piece of a much bigger picture. Some scientists like to think Mother Nature works on a 100 cycle but she has her own agenda...always has...always will. I believe that mankind has a lot to do with climate change. Let's face it...you can only poop in your bed so much and then...?
 
It's going to be high for a while. Didn't we have low water from 2010 to 2014 or so? I recall some boat launches being shut down because the water level was too low.
 
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Jello said:
It's going to be high for a while. Didn't we have low water from 2010 to 2014 or so? I recall some boat launches being shut down because the water level was too low.
Click to expand...
It's possible... but given the evaporation this winter it would take a lot of rain to keep the levels really high. This older post is about the low water times and has this stat: "On average, Lake Superior loses 29 billion gallons of water PER DAY through evaporation"

National Geographic Society Newsroom

Ideas and Insight From National Geographic
blog.nationalgeographic.org blog.nationalgeographic.org

You can see how ice cover plays a big role. There were mild winters leading up to the low water levels.
 
jrr said:
Just looking at the lake erie data.
View attachment 38673
i don't what the guys at Turkey Point Marina would do if they saw Lake Erie levels like that. They were loosing their minds over the last couple of years but now is not as high or for as long as compared to that.

This is now:

View attachment 38674
Click to expand...

That chart only goes to 2016-2017; the upward trend continued since then and the peaks of 2019 and 2020 were at/above the 100 year high mark.
 
Mother nature will balance all things out in time regardless of what man thinks he can due. Look up the male to female ratio of population makes for a interesting read. After WW1 and WW2 men were in short supply but some how nature rebalanced itself with out a carbon tax -lol
 
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Look at the chart data for early 1930's aka Dirty 30's . Lowest levels on record. An old timer by the name of Pete Overbaugh grew up on Long Point back then and said you could see shipwrecks sticking up out the water like picket fences the length of the beach. I wonder what the Inner Bay looked like back then ?
 
Old Cut LongPointer said:
Look at the chart data for early 1930's aka Dirty 30's . Lowest levels on record. An old timer by the name of Pete Overbaugh grew up on Long Point back then and said you could see shipwrecks sticking up out the water like picket fences the length of the beach. I wonder what the Inner Bay looked like back then ?
Click to expand...
I've seen pictures of cattle grazing on Whitefish bar, which was when Bait Island was attached to Turkey point 1929
 
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