Possible pause for lake effect snow squalls as ice cover on Great Lakes reaches 15-year high

The Great Lakes are freezing over which should limit lake effect squalls for rest of winter. CTV’s Scott Miller explains.

On Jan. 14, Lake Huron was almost a wide-open lake, with approximately 10 per cent ice coverage. By Monday, the lake was more than half covered in ice, a 45 per cent increase in a little over a week.

“We’ve seen this cold air really over the last 10 days that has been significant in terms of freezing. So, we’ve seen these numbers come up drastically,” said CTV News London Meteorologist Julie Atchison.

Cold air blowing over the relatively warm and open waters of Lake Huron has led to a steady stream of lake effect flurries and snow squalls for midwestern Ontario since December.

Now that Lake Huron is more than half frozen, will the lake effect flurries end?

“Any time you get the lakes freezing over, that will shut down the lake effect snow. Do we see this happening in Lake Huron? No, not yet, but we will see. Perhaps some of those lake effect snow bands change where they set up,” said Atchison.

The Great Lakes haven’t been this frozen over since 2014, sitting at 45 per cent ice cover. Lake Erie is almost entirely covered in ice, which hasn’t happened since 1997, while Lake Huron hit 55 per cent ice cover this week.

Much more cold weather is on the way with below average temperatures expected at through least the first week of February, and some of the coldest temperatures in decades coming up this weekend.

“I know everyone looks forward to Groundhog Day, because that’s kind of like the day where we’re like, ‘Okay, we made it.’ But in terms of the forecast, I really think that the cold has some staying power. So, models up until about the second week of February are still showing temperatures below average,” said Atchison.

This is a double-edged sword as colder temperatures freeze lakes, which curtails lake effect snow, but frozen lakes lead to cooler temperatures inland, Atchison says.

“As the lakes continue to freeze, we will see conditions getting even colder around the area, because we won’t have the lakes to moderate. So, we’re keeping a close eye for many factors for the lake effect snow component for the moderating of the temperatures in the area. So, watching the Great Lakes freeze is definitely one of those things where it really has a major impact on the weather in this region,” she said.