9 October 2025
On Tuesday meteorologist Ross Ellet posted on Fb that the water degree in Lake Erie will drop 5 inches within the subsequent month based on the U.S Military Corps of Engineers.
This sounds astonishing till you understand that Lake Erie’s water degree fluctuates seasonally and is often at its lowest in winter. You may see it on this GLERL graph evaluating this yr’s water degree (2025 YTD in blue) to final yr (2024 in pink).
Discover that the file maximums and minimums, shaded in pale blue, differ by 6.4 ft! Lake Erie has ranged about 3 ft greater and decrease than it’s immediately.
You normally expertise these fluctuations solely on the seashore however I do bear in mind flooded roads at Magee Marsh throughout excessive water in Might 2019.
(water ranges an Lake Erie seashore at Lengthy Level Provincial Park, Ontario from Wikimedia Commons at these hyperlinks: low water large seashore in 2017, excessive water no seashore in 2019)
Trying on the historic averages for the final 5 years, Lake Erie has been happening general.
However proper now it’s on the 1918-2024 Lengthy Time period Common, so there’s nothing to fret about.
p.s. Talking of fear, I bear in mind when Lake Erie was very polluted within the early 1970’s. Fish died on a regular basis and we didn’t wade or swim in it.
Whereas in search of images for this text I discovered a file photograph from June 1973 with the caption: “WHITE CITY BEACH SIGN [Cleveland, Ohio] WARNS AGAINST SWIMMING IN POLLUTED LAKE ERIE. TO REDUCE POLLUTION LIFEGUARDS POUR CHLORINE INTO THE WATER ONCE EVERY HOUR.”
Water air pollution was so unhealthy within the U.S. again then that it prompted the Clear Water Act of 1972. Solely a yr after the regulation was handed, Lake Erie was nonetheless in horrible form as a result of it took a very long time to wash up.
These days we take clear water without any consideration, but when the Clear Water Act is weakened we are going to slip again into the simple path of draining and dumping every kind of yuk into the water.
In the meantime it’s good to do not forget that “You don’t know what you’ve acquired til it’s gone.” — lyrics from Joni Mitchell Large Yellow Taxi
