Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park
April 2017 Ice Storm
Storm coats region in ice
Winter wasn’t done with us yet.
Last weekend, temps soared to 70 degrees. By mid-week, we were being pelted by snow, sleet and freezing rain. Here were a few of the stories from the region:
Ironwood Daily Globe: “An ice and snow storm swept through parts of northern Wisconsin and the western Upper Peninsula Tuesday evening, causing scattered power outages through Wednesday.”
Duluth News Tribune: “The Duluth airport had received 0.12 inches of freezing rain, 0.2 inches of sleet and 0.7 inches of snow as of noon Wednesday, with light precipitation continuing through the afternoon and into the evening.”
CBC Thunder Bay: “The day's worth of ice on Wednesday coated the city in a slick shell.”
Videos
Lake of the Clouds Scenic Site in the Porcupine Mountains of Michigan is temporarily closed due to hazardous conditions. Ice-covered trees are falling over under the weight and blocking roads. The park’s Facebook page has several videos – turn up your volume!
In Thunder Bay, skaters turned the ice-covered roads into a city-sized rink. TBNewsWatch has video.
And here’s our video of the big waves in Duluth that accompanied the storm.
Piping plover comeback stalls
Endangered piping plovers, once extirpated from the Great Lakes, have returned to and successfully nested at Apostle Islands National Lakeshore on Lake Superior, but not so in Duluth and Superior despite miles of suitable habitat.
John Myers writes for the Duluth News Tribune:
It's not that the critically endangered plovers haven't tried. Plovers were spotted on Park Point beaches in 2015 and again in 2016. But in both cases they were scared away by people and their free-running dogs, even after signs were posted urging people to stay away from that section of beach.
On Saturday the St. Louis River Alliance kicks off another hopeful nesting season with a beach cleanup and volunteer roundup day, 11 a.m. on Park Point. It’s an opportunity to learn about plover monitoring and how you can help the birds this spring and early summer.
Remembering four losses, 50 years later
In our April/May issue, Capt. Tom Mackay wrote about the April 30, 1967, tragedy at the Duluth Ship Canal, when three teenagers and a Coast Guardsman were swept from the pier during a storm and drowned.
Each year, Tom leaves four flowers at the memorial plaque on the pier, three for the Halverson brothers and one for his Coastie friend Edgar Culbertson. Join him at noon on Sunday, when Tom “will be at the pier along with anyone who can make it, to honor the memory of Ed and Eric, Nathan and Arthur,” he wrote. “We will never know what 50 years would have brought for them. That day, I can only bring them flowers and my commitment to remember.”
Interlake Steamship outfits another vessel with emission-reduction tech: The Mesabi Miner is the fourth Interlake vessel to get exhaust gas scrubbers, reports Eric Haun for MarineLink.
Drink up: Sleeping Giant Brewing Company in Thunder Bay is wrapping up its $1.5 million expansion, writes Ian Ross for Northern Ontario Business. The craft brewery opened in 2012 and now distributes across Ontario, with an eye toward the U.S. market, too.
Michigan Tech students work on rescue drones: Their prototype was featured in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story about technology developed to prevent drownings in the Great Lakes.
Gooseberry Falls trail work coming soon? Jamey Malcomb of the Lake County News Chronicle reports from the popular Minnesota state park: “Some maintenance work at Gooseberry Falls could begin this summer with minor fixes and some step replacement, but in the next summer or two there could also be a major upgrade for the trails coming.”
Trails conference brings stakeholders to Nipigon: Trailhead North 2017 gave “trail advocates, designers and users a chance to share their knowledge,” says Kris Ketonen of the CBC News.