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The Winter of 2013-14 in 60 Seconds
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The 10-Second Version [GIF]
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NASA
Lake Superior Ice: Jan. 2, 2014
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NASA/MODIS
Lake Superior Ice: Feb. 16, 2014
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NASA/MODIS
Lake Superior Ice: March 28, 2014
Continued ice cover on Lake Superior this spring has hampered the start of the shipping season. The Soo Locks opened on March 25, but no laker has yet made it to the locks.
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NASA
Lake Superior Ice: April 18, 2014
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NASA
Lake Superior Ice: May 10, 2014
This week the U.S. Coast Guard concluded five months of ice-breaking operations on the Great Lakes. The ice, crews reported, was the thickest and most expansive they've battled in 35 years. In the video above, watch as the ice develops on Lake Superior and, ever so slowly, breaks up in the spring. If possible, watch it in high-definition for the most detail.
Click to the second slide for the high-speed, 10-second GIF version.
Instead of our normal Around the Circle This Week column, here's a look back at a winter to remember:
Lake Superior nearly froze over completely, and even late in April more than half of the Big Lake's surface remained frozen. (Today, on May 16, ice still covers some 13 percent of the Lake.)
Never before, since satellites started collecting ice cover data in the late 1970s, has so much ice lingered on the Great Lakes so late in the year.
The conditions stalled the shipping season and sent icebreakers and lakers alike limping back to port with ice damage. The first ships didn't arrive in Sault Ste. Marie until nearly two weeks after the opening of the Soo Locks. Ice-slowed convoys needed the help of multiple Coast Guard cutters (Canadian and U.S.) to cross the Lake. Ultimately, early cargos were half the normal totals.
The first ocean-going vessel didn't finish the full transit of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway system until May 7, when the Antigua and Barbuda-flagged Diana reached Duluth. The previous record for latest arrival, set in 1959, was May 3.
While the ice put a quite literal dent in spring shipping, it was a boon for northwestern Wisconsin communities. The iced-over Apostle Islands sea caves were accessible by a hike over the Lake Superior ice for the first time in five years. More than 130,000 people took advantage of the increasingly rare opportunity and visited the caves. The ice didn't break up until late April.
On several occasions over the winter, an ice bridge formed between Isle Royale and the mainland. Many hoped that wolves would emigrate from Ontario and bolster the small and inbred island wolf population. While researchers may not know for some time if that happened, they did discover that a female nicknamed Isabelle used the bridge to leave for the mainland – where the wolf was shot and killed.
For anglers, the late ice meant a two-line fishing opener: one through the ice, the other in a patch of open water.
What Marquette photographer Shawn Malone has dubbed the endless winter continued into mid-May, when nearly 3 inches of snow fell on Michigan's Upper Peninsula.