Prompts winter weather advisories as cold air moves in Friday night

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The Great Lakes have never looked like this in February. 

 this month on Lake Superior and other Great Lakes. Lake Superior continues to hover around the record low 1.7 percent ice cover observed in the middle of this month. 

The average ice cover for Lake Superior this time of year is around 40 percent. Great Lakes total ice coverage was measured at 2.7 percent on Feb. 11.

Bryan Mroczka, a physical scientist with the Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab, cites this winter as the new low benchmark for Great Lakes ice cover.

Here are the readings for ice cover as of Feb. 11. Some of these are trending even lower as of Thursday:

The first months of 2012 are the benchmark for warmth in the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes regions, but the start of 2024 is even warmer. 

The chart below shows air temperature readings from buoys in Duluth Harbor. You can see this winter is running even warmer than the previous record year of 2021.

I reached out to Great Lakes researcher Jay Austin from the University of Minnesota Duluth to get some additional perspective on why this winter is unique. 

Here’s this striking graph of ice cover trends on Lake Superior. Note how climate change and Minnesota’s warmer winters have significantly impacted ice cover since 1997: 

The combination of climate change and our 

 are combining to drive the warmest winter on record. Winter temperatures since Dec. 1 rank as the first or second warmest across the Great Lakes basin. 

Climate change has warmed Minnesota winters by more than 5 degrees overall on average since 1970. 

The strong El Niño this winter is adding additional warming to our winter season by shifting jet stream patterns further northward and delivering a persistent feed of mild Pacific air into the Great Lakes region. 

Lake Superior typically sees peak ice cover in early March. With the forecast looking much warmer than average for the next few weeks, it’s unlikely that we’ll see a significant increase in ice cover this season.

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Paul Huttner

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Lake Superior typically sees peak ice cover in early March. With the forecast looking much warmer than average for the next few weeks, it’s unlikely that we’ll see a significant increase in ice cover in our warmest winter on record.

Lake Superior Maritime Museum

Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab.

Jay Austin University of Minnesota at Duluth.

Great Lakes ice cover before and after 1997

Where's the ice? Historic low Superior and Great Lakes ice cover

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