Lake Erie is Nearly 100% Ice-Covered After Great Lakes Region Slammed by Cold Stretch
The Midwest is so cold that even the “Global Warming” jokes froze over.
Last November, we examined a controversial scientific report asserting that a vital Atlantic current could falter within decades, an event they claim could trigger a new Ice Age.
This winter, Lake Erie is experiencing one of its iciest in decades, with ice coverage reported above 95% and the possibility of reaching a rare 100% freeze for the first time since 1996.
As of Feb. 3, 2026, Lake Erie is 94% frozen over, a figure that far exceeds the average ice peak of 65-70%, according to the National Weather Service Cleveland. Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory shows that the lake also reached near-100% coverage in 2025 (95.8%), 2018 (95.1%), 2015 (98.1%), 2014 (96.1%) and 2011 (95.8%).
Over the past five years especially, peak ice coverage has swung dramatically, ranging from a high of 94% this winter to just 11% in 2023.
Meteorologists attribute this year’s coverage to the prolonged stretch of extreme cold and this year’s record low temperatures.
According to Alexa Maines, a meteorologist at NWS Cleveland, January held one of the longest cold stretches ever recorded, with eight consecutive days below 20 degrees Fahrenheit from Jan. 24-31. Only two years — 1899 and 1961 — have experienced longer streaks, each lasting nine days.
Check out the massive crack that developed in Lake Erie's ice sheet. This was driven by strong winds. Crack is just under 100 miles long. pic.twitter.com/l7d5wwTndI
— Max Claypool (@MadMaxClaypool) February 9, 2026
Several factors are contributing to this development, including the lake’s shallowness and a “La Niña” weather pattern.
While recent cold snaps accelerated the freeze, Arnold said Lake Erie icing over this time of year is not unusual.
“It is very shallow compared to the other lakes so that’s why it does end up freezing, or at least the majority of it, over the course of the winter season,” Arnold said. “I wouldn’t call it abnormal for what we’re seeing currently, other than just it peaked a little bit earlier than the historical average.”
Typically, Lake Erie reaches peak ice coverage during mid-to-late February.
The colder conditions are being driven by a mix of factors, including the return of La Niña, a climate pattern that can shift the jet stream and bring colder, stormier weather to the region.
Lake Erie is nearing full ice coverage, something that hasn’t happened since 1996.
In modern records, the lake has only reached 100% ice coverage a few times. Most recently in 1996, and before that in 1979 and 1978, making a full freeze extremely rare, even for the shallowest… pic.twitter.com/0uKdTFPLQT
— I'm From Cleveland (@ImFromCle) February 8, 2026
The other Great Lakes of Michigan aren’t quite as icy. However, they are a bit above average for ice coverage at this time of year.
Lake Superior’s surface was 50% frozen over as of Feb. 9, about a 10 percentage point increase from Sunday, Feb. 8, and the highest percentage of ice cover for the season. The shoreline from Sault Ste Marie to Duluth, Minnesota, and north to Thunder Bay is covered in ice.
On Sunday, Feb. 8, ice on the Great Lakes totaled 54.29%, according to the latest charts by the U.S. National Ice Center. Ice cover dipped slightly to 53.01% coverage on Monday, Feb. 9.
Lake Erie remains nearly completely frozen over — about 95% coverage. Lake St. Clair Lake, which is included in the Great Lakes ice data, located between the St. Clair River and the Detroit River systems, is completely frozen over, according to the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, a National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration program.
Lake Huron is nearly three-quarters iced over at 66.64%, down from last week when the total was 77.49%.
Ice is more than 2 feet thick in many places, including along Lake Superior shorelines, Lake Huron’s northern shores, the inner Saginaw Bay, parts of northern Lake Michigan, nearly all of Lake Ontario, and the western portion of Lake Erie, according to U.S. National Ice Center’s thickness map.
After weeks of bone-chilling cold and headlines about record ice, it’s hard not to wonder if that “New Ice Age” theory is inching a little too close for comfort. For now, winter seems determined to overstay its welcome…making even the most skeptical among us start rooting for a little global warming and a more active Sun to hurry things along.
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According to the environmentalist wackos this is all just man made climate change. Anything that happens now is man made climate change. Heat wave – cold wave – no wave – all man made, By phrasing it like this they are never wrong at least according to them.
The searches all say they’d have made Byram Bay if they put 15 more miles behind her
For context: 07843. 😄
“Meteorologists attribute this year’s coverage to the prolonged stretch of extreme cold and this year’s record low temperatures.”
Well, I’ll be…. cold temperatures responsible for ice on the lake. How many years of grad school did it take to come up with such astute analysis?
I was at Oberlin for both the winter of 77 and 78. This year was pretty balmy in comparison.
I grew up Mentor in the 60’s. 1 mile from Lake Erie. Only 1 winter in the 9 years I lived there had what we called a “mild” winter. 64-69 had winters with below 20 degrees counted in weeks not days. Many days standing at the bus stop with the temps hovering around zero with a windchill in the minus region. The talk back then was all about are we seeing another ice age begin. That talked always tapered off because summers in those years were hotter than the historical norm. The earths climate is cyclical. Ice borings, sea floor borings all bear it out. Even tree rings show the climate variation. Stop giving money via grants to these purveyors of climate BS.
Oh No!
The Canadian Army is going to reach Cleveland!
Hey, George Washington marched his men from Morristown to Staten Island, over the frozen NY harbor.
That’s amazing–particularly since Morristown is nowhere near Staten Island or the harbor.
Boots do work on land too, you know.
No need.
We would happily trade Cleveland to Canada for a case of Molson, eh.
Keep the Molson, give me the Moosehead
Well, gosh darn that global warming…
Visiting eighth-graders all decided to hop into the pool today.
What weird weather this year,
Entirely due to globull warming.
Obviously.
Back to the Seventies!
If that was the case Lake Erie would be on fire and not merely frozen over.
…the global warming jokes froze over… 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂
Ice ages are when, not if.
World temperatures are driven by infinite forces, then the humans on the planet.
Very long stretch of cold weather here in the Carolinas. Wife and I have been here almost 20 years and don’t remember a stretch like this.
The real fun begins in March when the ice starts to break up and ice fishermen get stranded on an ice floe. This time also sees cars get swallowed up by the lake.
Michael Mann, please pick up the red phone. Al Gore is on the line.
There is science in some of this: orbital mechanics is a complex science. Not so much with the theory of anthropological catastrophic global warming. For those that understand the math and physics, the interactions of the variation in the shape of the earth’s orbit, variation in angle of precession, variation in magnitude of precession, variation in the plane of orbit, rotation of the sun, orbit of the sun around the center of mass of the solar system and perturbation of all of these by the interactions of the masses and velocities of all the planets … well it is an interesting field of study. Mostly a settled science.
The interaction of all these with occasional interstellar visitors, like comets, and similar bodies, well that is not yet settled science.
It does not matter what the courts of the EPA says. Nature will ignore them.
oh wow
how erie
Wait until the ice starts melting and you read about the trapped ice fishermen. Coast guard will rescue them, but their gear stays on the ice.
Some of the more die hard ice fishermen will jump over cracks in the ice to get to where they think the fish are biting better.
If you feel lucky you can go out and try to recover the gear and have a big garage sale.
So my idea for generating power with a fleet of giant Bobbing Bird heat engines lining the shores of Lake Erie won’t work?