We all know the Great lakes cover a vast area – why else would they be “great”. Lakes Erie, Huron,Ontario, Superior and Michigan cover an area of 244,000 square kilometres. One fifth of the world’s fresh surface water, 17,549 Kms. of coastline, and enough water to submerge continental USA under almost 10 feet of water were you able to open a flood gate and spread them around.
It’s hard to comprehend their size until you tackle them head on; one of our road trips across Canada followed the route north of Lake Superior – from Thunder Bay to Sault St. Marie, a distance of over 700 kilometres just to drive the top of Superior. Before tripping north of Superior lake statistics were numbers without actual reference – even having perspective, it’s difficult to view this lake as anything other than an inland sea.
When I heard this little snippet I nearly fell out of my pondering chair – as of March 5 the NOAA reported 91% of the Great Lakes are covered in ice. A few more days of abnormally cold weather could break the record of 94.7% set in 1979.
I’m not saying climate change is afoot – that jury can stay out. I will say I find all that lake ice freakin’ crazy, and will link to a couple old posts on the subject below the link on lake ice.
https://notestoponder.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/six-degrees/
https://notestoponder.wordpress.com/2014/01/11/polar-vortex-and-ice-quakes/
I had familt who lived on the shores of lake Huron. We visited when I was 12 and I couldn’t comprehend that a lake could be bigger than the North Sea, which was my benchmark for huge!
To think that frozen is beyond me but I have seen the photos!
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The stats are indeed mind boggling. We had to learn all this stuff about the Great Lakes in school in Geography. Not that I can remember much of it. Though I remember for one year the teacher was hot. Does this count?
lol…
Duh! Hot teachers always count – often responsible for the first “bustle in your hedgerow” 🙂
But not always leading to a “staircase to heaven.”
That would just be creepy 🙂 Unless she professed..
“sing loud for the sunshine, pray hard for the rain. show your love for lady nature, she will come back again”
(The only weather related approximation of Zeppelin lyrics I could come up with)
So quoting lines from the Lemon Song would be quite inappropiate?
Quit while you are ahead Mister Ark….now, be told!