Great Lakes water levels continue to drop: Lake Superior lost 1 trillion gallons last month
We are in the seasonal decline of the Great Lakes water levels. Two lakes have fallen so much they are approaching the average water level.
There is a seasonality to the Great Lakes water levels. If the weather conditions are near normal, Great Lakes water levels are usually at their highest around July. The water levels decline from August through March, and then rise from March to July.
The loss of water in December is therefore to be expected.
Lake Superior declined 2 inches from November 30, 2022 to December 30, 2022. This is a fairly typical amount of water decline for December. It represents what sounds like a bunch of water: one inch of water on Lake Superior equally 550 billion gallons of water. About 1 trillion gallons of water left Lake Superior either through outflow into Lakes Michigan and Huron, or evaporation. In winter, the precipitation amounts decline in the colder air. A loss of water level basically comes down to more water flowing out and evaporating than falling as precipitation. Also, the precipitation is mostly snow in December, which doesn’t make it as water into Lake Superior until the spring snowmelt.
Lakes Michigan and Huron are one big lake when it comes to determining lake water levels. Lakes Michigan and Huron also declined 2 inches in December. Again, while this is a big number with gallons of water, it is an average water loss for December. Those two lakes now have 1.6 trillion gallons less water than they did on November 30. Much of the world would rejoice to have a trillion gallons of fresh water. It’s a drop in the bucket for us here in Michigan.
Read the full story here:https://www.mlive.com/weather/2023/01/great-lakes-water-levels-continue-to-drop-lake-superior-lost-1-trillion-gallons-last-month.html?fbclid=IwAR1QIozAxnnaKvWTLvVU9sq_zw59zW7hSyzasn-HnglnKFPP-eT-hltP3Xo
MLive
New Tall Ship will be coming to Grand Traverse Bay to sail the Great Lakes
There will be a new tall ship sailing the Great Lakes this year, and it will soon be heading to its new home in Northern Michigan.
The Inland Seas Education Association made the big announcement to its supporters, they’ve acquired a new vessel. The schooner “Alliance” will be joining the fleet on West Grand Traverse Bay. “It’s a perfect fit for an addition to our fleet, and it’s going to allow us to reach more people throughout the Great Lakes and offer our programs at different ports throughout the Great Lakes,” says ISEA Associate Director Juliana Lisuk.
It’s not a replacement, but an addition to the Schooner “Inland Seas” already in use. “Over the past few years, our programs have been expanding to be over our capacity of what we can offer with a single schooner. So we’ve kind of been thinking about expanding our fleet for a while and keeping our eye out for the perfect ship. And this ship Alliance became available this past fall,” Lisuk says.
The three masts of the “Alliance” top out at 105-feet tall. The group says they’ll be able to expand their educational offerings.
“We take students and the general public out onto the Great Lakes to teach them about Great Lakes ecology and create a connection with why our Great Lakes are so important and so beautiful. So we’ll be using it to offer our science programing, both for schools around the Great Lakes, public programs in partnership with universities and colleges,” Lisuk says. “One of our goals is that this will allow us to have a bigger presence here in our local community. When we’ve had one ship, when it’s gone, we don’t have a boat here to provide programing for people. And so this will allow us to both be reaching other ports across the Great Lakes, as well as providing more program in the Grand Traverse region.”
The Alliance will be moving from its current home in Virginia to northern Michigan this June.
“This spring, alliance will be making a grand journey home to her new home in the Great Lakes. And we’ll be going through the whole St. Lawrence Seaway and through Lake Ontario and Lake Erie and Lake Huron. And coming back to Suttons Bay by the end of June,” Lisuk says.
Inland Seas has already hired another captain for the vessel and plans to make additional hires for the summer season as they add programs and opportunities.
“We will be expanding our staff to be able to have capacity to run programs on two ships. So we’ve hired a second full time captain and we’ll be hiring a mate and a deckhand and another educator to help us be able to have more programs happening at the same time,” Lisuk adds. “Overnight programing, public sails and some of our other partners with universities, we’re hoping to do those programs on the ship this summer. We’ll be testing out different needs and figuring out what needs to be adjusted for a new boat. And then next summer (2024) we hope to have her fully working for the whole season, but we will be using her in July and August and September (2023).”
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