While it snowed in Florida yesterday (click here for video!) the deep freeze up north is making the Great Lakes ice up.
As of yesterday Lake Erie was iced over on its western and all along the shore to Buffalo. Erie freezes before the other lakes because it’s so shallow.
With the western end frozen solid it’s hard to keep shipping channels open. Ten years ago during the very cold winter of 2015 ships got stuck in Lake Erie’s ice. This one is stuck near Ashtabula, Ohio that February. Coast Guard icebreakers came out to rescue it.
When the job is done the crew gets “ice liberty” to jump in the water. In the photo at top they are gazing at the ship they freed. Below you can see they are wear waterproof ice suits when they do it.
Crew of USS Bristol Bay on “ice liberty,” (photo )
This is their a reward for a job well done.
Ice, anyone?
p.s. The day after I wrote this article, the USS Bristol Bay was called out to Buffalo, NY to free a ship stuck in the ice. Here’s news on 23 January 2025 before the icebreaker showed up.
It’s Crazy Cold in the U.S. right now. While half the continent is unusually cold a winter storm is sweeping through the deep South. You know it’s wild when there’s a Blizzard Warning in coastal Louisiana today!
But I woke up in South Florida this morning and I feel mighty lucky. My husband and I started planning this trip two months ago and just happened to pick the same week as a continental cold snap.
South Florida is not particularly warm right now and it’s going to rain shower every day but I can’t complain. Instead of snow I’m in the land of snowy egrets. And they don’t care if they get wet.
There were over 100 dead and dying snow geese at the limestone quarry in Nazareth PA [Northampton County] this afternoon. We have a possible avian influenza outbreak on our hands. I have contacted the PA Game Commission.
Yesterday the PA Game Commission said there were also dead snow geese at Upper Macungie Township in Lehigh County, both with a “strong suspicion of avian influenza.”
UPDATE as of 8:50 AM 1/2/25: The PA Game Commission has had specialists in the quarry at Nazareth to collect the dead snow geese. There are reportedly hundreds now. There are too many to even try to collect them all. The birds are reportedly on their way to or at the lab for autopsy. In my post last evening, I used the word POSSIBLE … This morning the staffer calling me used the words “strong suspicion of avian influenza.” Tests will confirm or reject that hypothesis.
It is not surprising that bird flu is spreading in the wild from state to state. Birds fly and Prime Hook, Delaware is only 130 miles from Nazareth, PA, well within the snow goose range of up to a thousand miles per day in migration.
Meanwhile, the state of Pennsylvania urges everyone to take these precautions:
Those encountering sick or dead wild birds can report them to the Pennsylvania Game Commission by calling 1-833-PGC-WILD (1-833-742-9453), by emailing pgc-wildlifehealth@pa.gov or by using the online Wildlife Health Survey tool.
Any sick or dead domestic birds should be reported to Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture at 717-772-2852. If you have had contact with sick or dead birds and are not feeling well, contact your primary care physician or the Pennsylvania Department of Health at 877-724-3258.
Always observe wildlife from a safe distance. Avoid contacting surfaces that may be contaminated with feces from wild or domestic birds. Do not handle wildlife unless you are hunting, trapping, or otherwise authorized to do so.
Waterfowl hunters are encouraged to continue participating in the remaining season, but should take precautions while handling and dressing birds. These include wearing nitrile gloves, protective eye wear, and a mask. Following any hunt make a point to practice good hygiene, including washing hands and any clothing used in the process of dressing game that may contain blood or feces. Finally, never handle wildlife that is sick or displaying signs of sickness. Instead, report it to the Game Commission.
At this moment bird flu can only be caught by human contact with infected birds or animals but we should take care not catch it. Why? Because the more people who catch it, the more likely it will mutate within humans to something we can spread directly to each other. When that happens, all bets are off. Read more about bird flu transmission and humans at the BBC.
p.s. This December 2024 map of recent HPAI (highly pathogenic avian influenza) outbreaks in the wild is current to 18 Dec 2024. It is maintained by USDA but does not yet include this week’s news from PA and Delaware which I’ve added in pink. Watch here for a USDA update this month!
It seems that Pittsburgh missed waterfowl migration this fall with only a handful of the expected migrants landing on our rivers and lakes. Except for long distance migrants, waterfowl haven’t come at all.
Some ducks, geese and gulls only move south when ice overtakes their location. If they’re hanging out at Lake Erie near Presque Isle, the map of yesterday’s water temperature indicates they have no reason to leave. The water there is more than 40°F and the only ice is in small bays (black color on the map).
There are a few rare geese, though, photographed and posted to eBird and embedded below.
There’s currently a Ross’s goose (Anser rossii) at North Park, noticeably small than the Canada geese it’s hanging out with.
Yesterday there was a brant (Branta bernicla) at Duck Hollow without any Canada geese to keep it company. So it hung out with ring-billed gulls.
And a flock of 16 greater white-fronted geese (Anser albifrons) who normally migrate west of the Mississippi and winter in Louisiana, southern Texas and Mexico have been hanging out with Canada geese in Butler County since 1 December.
These geese are called “white-fronted” because their foreheads are white.
Wondering why the ducks aren’t here? This 2021 vintage article explains why.
This month Schmidt Ocean posted a beautiful deep sea video from their deep sea rover’s voyage off the Pacific coast of South America.
11 Dec 2024: After 55 days of exploration, the #ChileMargin2024 expedition team is heading home. Researchers have been exploring along a margin where a submerged continental shelf extends from the country’s west coast and drops steeply and suddenly into the Pacific Ocean.
Did you see the rocks and cliffs in the video? If you could see the entire formation without the ocean in the way, it is actually a very steep mountain range from the bottom of the trench to the top of the Andes, more than 15,000 meters or about 49,300 feet(*) with squids at the bottom and birds at the top.
This area is so deep because the Nazca Plate is subducting under the South American Plate, causing the Andes to rise and the Peru-Chile Trench to plunge deeper.
Schmidt Ocean Institute is a 501(c)(3) private non-profit operating foundation established to advance oceanographic research, discovery, and knowledge, and catalyze sharing of information about the oceans.
The Great Lakes hold nearly 20% of the world’s fresh surface water. And, more astonishingly, the lakes hold more than 90% of North America’s fresh surface water.
But this water supply is not unlimited. The Great Lakes are a one-time gift from the glaciers that melted in our region thousands of years ago. Less than 1 percent of the lakes’ water is renewed annually through rainfall and snowmelt. That means the Great Lakes can be depleted if we don’t keep Great Lakes water in the Great Lakes Basin.
The Great Lakes watershed map shows how little of the surrounding land drains into lakes. This is especially true of northern Pennsylvania and Chautauqua County, NY.
As climate change puts enormous strains on fresh water resources, multinational companies look longingly at bottling our rivers and lakes. Fortunately the Great Lakes basin had an early wake up call.
In 1998, an obscure Canadian consulting company, the Nova Group, announced its intention to ship 158 million gallons of Lake Superior water to Asia. Though that specific plan seemed unlikely to materialize, it raised alarms about the vulnerability of the Great Lakes in an increasingly hot and thirsty world.
And so the Great Lakes Compact was born. Signed into law in 2008, it prohibits diversion of water outside the Great Lakes basin with very limited exceptions.
This one-time gift of the Ice Age glaciers won’t be frittered away.
p.s. Prior to 1945 humans diverted Great Lakes water in four locations but these have barely made a dent in the total watershed.
Ogoki pulls water from Hudson Bay watershed into Lake Superior. 1943.
Long Lac pulls water from Hudson Bay watershed into Lake Superior. 1939.
The Chicago River is diverted away from Lake Michigan and into the Mississippi watershed. Beginning in the 1800s.
Welland Canal is a navigation channel from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario that bypasses Niagara Falls. Beginning in 1824.
The combined effects of the Long Lac, Ogoki and Chicago diversions and the Welland Canal have been to permanently raise Lake Superior by an average of 2.1 centimeters (0.8 inches), lower Lakes Michigan-Huron by 0.6 cm (0.2 in), lower Lake Erie by 10 cm (4 in) and raise Lake Ontario by 2.4 cm (1 in), according to the IJC’s 1985 Great Lakes Diversions and Consumptive Uses report.
On 14 November The Allegheny Front described oil pollution on the Monongahela River that’s been happening for more than two years. Monitored by Three Rivers Waterkeeper since May 2022, an oil sheen sometimes covers the water from bank to bank for three miles, all the way to McKeesport. This can’t be good for our bald eagles who nest along on the Mon and eat fish from its water.
“These are pretty serious sheens,” said Captain Evan Clark, a boat captain for Three Rivers Waterkeeper. “When I’m boating around up there, my boat is running through a heavy rainbow sheen that can extend from one bank of the river to the other, literally for miles.”
In August 2022, an EPA inspector reported oil discharge from the plant’s outfall, or drainage pipe, and found “substantial rainbow sheening could be seen for approximately 3 miles downstream.”(*)
Last year the Pennsylvania Dept of Environmental Protection (DEP) determined the oil was coming from a USS Irvin Works outfall and “issued a compliance order requiring U.S. Steel to deploy absorbent booms, investigate the cause of the releases and implement a plan to fix any problems.” — The Allegheny Front
But a year later the problem has not been addressed and it happened again last month. DEP has proposed setting a water pollution permit level on that outfall. Three Rivers Waterkeeper wants real-time monitoring on it.
Meanwhile, oil-covered water cannot be good for our bald eagles who touch the water’s surface and eat fish and waterfowl captured in or on the water.
During an oil sheen episode the pair that nests at USS Irvin Works cannot hunt the Mon for three miles downstream of their nest without being exposed to the oil. This is a lot of territory to avoid with hungry chicks in the nest.
Employees at USS Irvin Works are so proud of their bald eagle pair that the company installed an eaglecam to watch them at the nest. Surely USS Irvin Works will clean up this outfall to protect everyone who uses the Mon including their favorite eagles.
Read more about the issue here at The Allegheny Front …
Charity Kheshgi and Jon Woon joined me yesterday at Duck Hollow where we looked for birds under extremely overcast skies. Unfortunately the ducks were so far away and the light was so poor that we have no photos to show for it. Instead I’ve embedded look-alike photos from Macaulay Library.
Best birds were these very distant ducks.
1 Canvasback female (sample photo above): We pondered this bird for a long time because she was paired with a male ring-necked duck. Yes, she was a canvasback. We were witnessing future hybridization within the Aythya genus.
The Ring-necked Duck entry in Birds of the World includes eBird records with photos of hybrids between Ring-necked Ducks and Canvasback, Redhead, Tufted Duck, and Great and Lesser Scaup.
Those who live at the eastern and western ends of Lake Erie are well aware that a strong west wind can trigger a storm surge in Buffalo and dry lake bottom at Toledo. When the storm is gone it becomes a seiche that makes the lake slosh back and forth like a bathtub. If you’ve never seen it, these videos will help.
Of all the Great Lakes, Lake Erie is the most likely to slosh because it is shallow and oriented along the storm path. The wind has a long distance (fetch) to kick up waves and amplify the effect.
Tomorrow and Thursday a strong cold front will sweep west to east across the region with winds gusting as high as 38mph. Perhaps there will be another seiche.
