Lake Michigan Ice

Today and four years ago

Jim Mura
2 min readFeb 27, 2023
Photo by author / Grand Haven pier… iceless end of Feb 2023

Four season fun on the shores of Lake Michigan! Ice mountains, volcanos, the power and fury of winter! The lake freezing mostly over. Well, not this year.

This year, Lake Michigan is only 7% ice covered. Usually it is 40% or more. Occasionally, every Great Lake has frozen completely over… but never Lake Michigan. Although it has come close in the past. The lake is over 80 miles wide where we live. Many years, open water can be many miles from shore.

Earlier this year we got a touch of shoreline ice build up. Historically now is the time for maximum ice. But now… it is gone.

What will the lack of winter ice bring for us this year? More lake effect snow to come? More lake effect rain later? An earlier spring? Earlier return of salmon fishing? Earlier prime swimming season as we have warmer water?

As we used to say in our South Carolina days… “We are fixin to find out!”

Today I am posting some photos I took in 2019.

Photo by author / foghouse on Grand Haven pier Feb 2019
Phot by author / Ice mountains at Grand Have pier Feb 2019
Photo by author / Feb 2019
Photo by author / Feb 2023

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Jim Mura
Jim Mura

Written by Jim Mura

Writing from the dunes on Lake Michigan… michigandreams.com

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