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NASA/MODIS
Lake Superior: Jan. 21, 2014
Ice cover on the Lake reached 50.9 percent on Jan. 22. Much of eastern Lake Superior was still ice-free.
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NOAA/GLERL
Ice on Lake Superior: Jan. 22, 2014
The 50.9 percent ice coverage is the most on the Lake since 2009.
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NOAA/GLERL
Annual Maximum Ice Cover
The maximum ice cover on Lake Superior, 1973 to 2013. In 2014, the max has now topped 50 percent.
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NOAA/GLERL
Ice Cover, 2013-2014
A series of January arctic blasts have boosted ice cover past 50 percent this winter.
More than half of Lake Superior is now frozen over – reaching 50.9 percent ice cover – and there's still plenty of winter left this year to further boost that number. It's the most ice we've had on the Lake since 2009, when coverage peaked at 93.6 percent. Last winter, the coverage maximum was only 40.5 percent; in 2011-12, it never got above 9.
NASA's Aqua satellite captured a great image (large file; may take a minute to load) of the Lake and its ice yesterday.
Decades ago, the ice concentration regularly peaked at more than 80 percent, but we've seen that much ice only twice in the last 10 years.
GLERL's Great Lakes Ice pages have much more data, current and historical, including some neat animations.