Lake Levels Rising in the Great Lakes

The Detroit Free Press

Water levels are surging in the Great Lakes and likely will set records this summer, forecasters said Monday — a remarkable turnaround from earlier this decade that's bringing welcome relief to shippers and marina owners, but causing flooding and heavy erosion in some areas.

A six-month bulletin from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers predicted Lake Superior and Lake Erie soon will reach unprecedented high points, as a heavy winter snowpack across the region's northern section melts and mingles with water gushing into the lakes from rivers swollen with spring rainfall.

Levels have been trending upward at varying rates since 2013, when Lakes Huron and Michigan fell to their lowest points and the other Great Lakes were significantly below normal. That was the nadir of a nearly 15-year slump that stranded pleasure boats, forced cargo vessels to lighten loads, dried up wetlands and fueled conspiracy theories that water was somehow being siphoned off to the parched West.

               "It's quite the shift," said Keith Kompoltowicz, chief of watershed hydrology with the                           Corps' district office in Detroit. "Now we're at the other extreme."

Lake Superior, which holds more water than the other four combined and sends it in a continuous flow through its southern outlet, is about 15 inches (38.1 centimeters) above its long-term average level for this time of year, and nine inches (22.9 centimeters) higher than a year ago. Lake Erie is 26 inches (66 centimeters) over its long-term average.

Michigan, Huron and Ontario aren't expected to set records but are well above average, Kompoltowicz said.

Great Lakes levels are known to fluctuate over time. But experts said the prolonged drop-off of the past decade and the more recent rise likely result at least in part from a warming climate.