What Next for Great Lakes Weather.

Heavy winds from west to east caused rip currents and cross currents on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  This photo was taken on Tuesday.  The weather was quite warm and the unusual weather pattern has now changed to cold with rain.

What next?  Heavy snow is predicted for this winter.  I like to ski.

Read more about the Great Lakes in my non-fiction book, The Dynamic Great Lakes.

High Winds on Lake Michigan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr2APJnwTAY  For the past three days we have been in a huge weather bomb from Minnesota all the way to the east coast and south to the southern states.  The wind has been howling like thousands of dragons and we have felt the lash of the dragons breath and the whip of dragon's tails.  I took this video October 27 about 6:30 p.m.  The wind even got stronger where I live on the lakeshore of Lake Michigan after dark.

On the video my voice is barely heard over the wind blasts and I was having trouble keeping upright.  The wind has reconfigured the beach sand into small dunes in spite of the snow fence meant to contain the sand.  The city has been at work keeping the sand off the road that runs parallel to the beach.  Today the wind is still howling but the colder weather has brought rain.

The waves have stood over 14 feet here at times.  People are walking the beach to feel the strength of the wind.

Muskegon Light on Lake Michigan

West Michigan's shore is lovely right now.  Pictured above is the Muskegon Light.

The Muskegon Harbor and the sandy beach with beach grasses.

Above: Afternoon light shines through sassafras leaves at Hoffmaster State Park in West Michigan.

A red maple and yellow sassafras leaves.

A herring gull at the marina

This herring gull did not mind at all when I walked up to him to take his photo.  He is perched on a post at the Grand Haven city Marina.  These birds are always looking for a hand out and they have found that people will feed them.  But I had nothing to give.  He will need to find his own lunch, maybe a dead fish or some such flotsam.

If he wants a change of scenes he can always fly a short distance to the sandy beach a few blocks away.

The Great Lakes Basin

This chart is from Seagrant.  It shows the Great Lakes watershed in green and the five Great Lakes in blue.  Also shown in this freshwater system are Lake Nipigon north of Lake Superior and Lake St. Clair between Lake Huron and Lake Erie.  Although large, these lakes are not called Great Lakes.  Starting from Lake Superior some say is shaped like a wolf's head, the water flows into Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, then into Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie.  The freshwater then takes a tremendous plunge over Niagara Falls into Lake Ontario and from there it flows out the St. Lawrence River  until it reaches the Atlantic Ocean.  Also seen on this chart are the states in the United States and the provinces in Canada surrounding the Great Lakes.  Canada and the U.S. share this mighty freshwater system. 

Read more about the Great Lakes in my critically acclaimed  book, The Dynamic Great Lakes Now available from the Amazon.com Kindle for $9.95, Barnes & Noble in paperback and many other fine bookstores.

Fishing on the Great Lakes

Anadramous fish such as coho salmon and king salmon are now starting to run from the Great Lakes and then up the same streams where they were hatched.  This knowledge lies embedded in their bodies along the lateral line that runs up their sides.  They will find the place then the females will deposit their eggs on the streambed and males will follow and deposit their sticky milt on the eggs.

Sports fishers fish from piers or boats hoping to catch a salmon or even a steelhead.

Satellite view of The Upper Great Lakes

As seen from a satellite, Lake Michigan  is in the foreground with some of Lake Superior showing above it and Lake Huron to the east.  Geologically, Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are the same lake because they are at the same sea level.  They are like Siamese twins attached through the straits of Mackinac.  These are the upper Great Lakes.

Not in the picture are Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, the lower Great Lakes.