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Gale-force winds are expected to sweep across the Great Lakes, whipping up occasional offshore waves nearing 30 feet in southern Lake Michigan on Friday night.
The strongest gales, from the north at about 50 miles per hour, are forecast to hit Friday afternoon and last into the night, according to the National Weather Service as of 2:36 a.m. Oct. 15.
In the open water of southern Lake Michigan ? south of Sheboygan across to Pentwater, Michigan ? waves are expected to build up to 20 feet Friday night, with the largest occasional waves reaching 26 feet.
Offshore in the northern part of the lake, waves are forecast to reach up to 16 feet, with occasional waves reaching 21 feet, according to the forecast forecast as of 2:36 a.m. Oct. 15.
Waterspouts could also form over southern Lake Michigan. These spinning columns of air look like funnels extending from the clouds to the water. Fall is peak waterspout season in the Great Lakes, when cold air passes over the still-warm lakes.
Water temperatures at nearshore buoys off Shorewoods’s Atwater Park and Chicago were around 60 degrees Thursday morning, though temperatures farther offshore can differ by a few degrees.
Lake Michigan won’t be the only lake facing wild waves.
On Lake Superior, waves could build to 15 to 20 feet Friday off Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, with occasional waves up to 25 feet, and winds there could reach storm force.
Central and southern Lake Huron could see occasional waves around 18 feet Friday night. While Lake Erie and Lake Ontario are forecast to see smaller occasional waves of around 14 feet and 10 feet, according to National Weather Service forecasts issued early Thursday.
The gales of November arrive in the Great Lakes
The winds arrive as the lakes enter their most dangerous ? and notorious ? stretch of the year: the gales of November.
Known to sailors as the “witch of November,” strong windstorms in the Great Lakes peak from October through December, when cold Arctic air clashes with warm Gulf air. The low pressure systems that form can strengthen when over water that is still relatively warm, whipping up violent waves.
The storms have left the lake bottoms littered with shipwrecks. Maritime historians estimate the gales of November are responsible for about half of all Great Lakes shipwrecks, but one became especially famous: the Edmund Fitzgerald.
The freighter, owned by Milwaukee’s Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., sank in Lake Superior in the early evening of Nov. 10, 1975, about 17 miles northwest of Whitefish Point, Michigan. It was the second day of what became its final voyage. All 29 crew members were lost.
Unlike ocean waves, which can roll in from storms thousands of miles away, Great Lakes waves are whipped up by local winds. That makes them shorter, steeper and packed more tightly together.
But that doesn’t mean they less dangerous.
The faster the wind blows, the more energy the waves carry, and the increase is dramatic. For instance, when the wind speed doubles from 20 to 40 miles per hour, the waves don’t get twice as powerful ? they become 16 times more powerful.
Caitlin Looby covers the Great Lakes and the environment for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Contact: [email protected].
Caitlin is an Outrider Fellow and also receives support from the Brico Fund, Fund for Lake Michigan, Barbara K. Frank, and individual contributions to the Journal Sentinel Community-Funded Journalism Project. Journal Sentinel editors maintain full editorial control over all content. To support this work, visit jsonline.com/support. Checks can be addressed to Local Media Foundation (memo: “JS Community Journalism”) and mailed to P.O. Box 85015, Chicago, IL 60689.
The JS Community-Funded Journalism Project is made possible through our partnership with Local Media Foundation, tax ID #36-4427750, a Section 501(c)(3) charitable trust affiliated with Local Media Association, and EnMotive, LLC, a subsidiary of USA TODAY Co., Inc.?the parent company of this publication.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Lake Michigan waves could top 25 feet as gales hit the Great Lakes
Reporting by Caitlin Looby, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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