Lake of ice on the Great Lakes

When I drove to and from Marquette yesterday, I noticed how little ice cover there is on the Big Lake. I just looked it up. The ice coverage of all five lakes is only 8.9 percent. This is weird. Usually, by this time of the winter, most of the lower Great Lakes are mostly frozen over. The Lake Superior average for this date is 32 percent. The current ice coverage on Lake Superior is only 3 percent.  The comparison stats are below.

 

     Mid-February 2014                                 Mid-February 2017

Lake Erie, 95.8 percent                                     8.4 percent

Lake Huron, 95.5 percent                                19.0 percent

Lake Superior, 94.6 percent                              3.0 percent

Lake Michigan, 82.3 percent                           10.1 percent

Lake Ontario, 43.4 percent                               2.9 percent