3 days ago
Data: Water levels along Great Lakes staying steady
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — It has been nearly five years since Lake Michigan and Lake Huron , causing and damaging several lakeside properties. After five years of steady drops, the lake has returned to average levels and could even stay below the mean this summer.
For the month of April, the average water level for — hydrologically, just one lake — was 578.35 feet. That is about 6 inches below the lake's long-term average and nearly 4 feet below the peak measured in July of 2020.
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But what's the difference between 2020 and 2025? Why do the lake levels fluctuate? Lauren Fry, a research physical scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab, says it comes down to three primary factors.
'We call it net base and supply,' Fry told News 8. 'That's the combined influence of the precipitation over the lake plus any runoff from the land surface into the lake, minus the evaporation from the lake.'
For Lake Michigan/Huron, the record levels of 2020 were years in the making.
'If we looked over the previous five years, (those were among) the wettest five years on record. That was the culmination of several sequences of very wet years that led us up to that record-high water level,' Fry said.
, 2019 and 2017 were the two wettest years on record for the Great Lakes basin. The basin collected 42.65 inches and 41.14 inches of precipitation in those years. Since 1895, only one other year cracked 40 inches: 2011 (40.68 inches).
'This time of year, in 2020, there was pretty much no drought in the basin in the spring of 2020. But now, looking at the end of March drought monitor for North America, there are a number of areas that have some level of drought,' Fry said.
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That includes much of Michigan's lower peninsula, along with stretches in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Much of Minnesota and northern portions of Wisconsin are also considered to be in a .
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is always analyzing data and issuing a for each of the Great Lakes. The current forecast shows it's more likely than not that Lake Michigan/Huron will fall short of the long-term average when it peaks later this summer. The summer peak hasn't come in below the long-term average since 2013.
Levels on Lake Michigan/Huron have been trending steadily lower since 2020, but data shows the levels shouldn't drop notably in the coming year. The Great Lakes Basin has collected anywhere between 34 and 36.2 inches of precipitation in each of the five years. They were not the wettest years on record, but consistently higher than most years.
Geography plays a role in how that precipitation formula impacts the lakes differently. Lake Michigan/Huron hit record highs in July 2020, but not the others. Erie and Ontario actually hit record highs the year before and were slightly lower in 2020. Same with Lake Superior, which was just inches shy of its all-time record in 2019.
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While the basin numbers are high, more precise data would favor Lake Michigan/Huron. That lake and the nearby areas that feed into it received a higher portion of the precipitation than the other lakes. Therefore, Lake Michigan/Huron rose sharply in 2020, while the others fell short of their 2019 numbers.
Because of the 2020 spike, we know the negative impacts of high lake levels, but what about low levels? Fry says there are several potential problems, including water access.
'Your boat in your marina might have a harder time. You might have to have more dredging, navigation impacts. Big freighters may have less ability to carry as much freight,' Fry surmised.
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Fish habitat on the Great Lakes wouldn't be impacted much by a drop in levels but other parts of the system could be.
'It (likely) wouldn't be in the lakes, but it'd probably be in the feeder system. Wetlands and stuff that drain into (the lakes),' Fry said. 'If the lakes are low, that means they are low, too.'
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