the Great Lakes water levels have fluctuated wildly over the past seven years this year they dropped by two to three feet after record highs in 2019 and 2020 yeah next weather meteorologist Karen Carter looks at what goes into measuring these levels and how that has an effect on your daily life Michigan has more freshwater Shoreline than any other state in America the great lak's water levels are kept under close watch both in the US and in Canada water levels uh on the Great Lakes are measured
using a network of water level gauges that are positioned throughout the great lak so we report out Lake wide average water levels on a daily basis uh that we eventually then calculate like monthly mean levels low or high water levels can affect our everyday life from erosion and flooding to beaches and boating it can affect shipping and navigation and even the ecosystem and Hydro power generation and much of it has to do with the weather and I think when it comes down to it water levels are imp
acted by so many uh weather and hydrological uh variables they're impacted by water temperatures air temperatures you know ice cover um you know precipitation runoff evaporation in the fall and all of these things are happening at different times of the year you know where the spring precipitation could be important and that that could increase the rise but you know maybe in the in the fall we're very dry and that maybe increases the decline we see in in in water levels although weather elements
affect the water levels there are seasonal Cycles to these levels too the water levels every year are going through a typical seasonal cycle so you know this time of year as we get into the spring uh usually we're seeing water levels rise as a result of uh run off from snow melt or spring rain then in the summer we typically see water reach their peak in the fall typically seeing lake levels declined primarily driven by evaporation during that time these Cycles have to be monitored and forecast
ed we look at the El Nino L forecast we look at the climate Prediction Center uh we also look at uh environment and climate change Canada seasonal outlooks as well um to help guide some of our forecasting there are short-term six-month forecasts that are issued regularly but the long-term forecasts are very difficult due to so many variables look at the full period of record you could definitely see we go through these fluctuations of highs and lows but it's really hard to denote how long is tha
t cycle a changing climate it's becoming more resilience to that wide range of water levels is is really important because you know we're seeing these changing weather conditions we're trying to understand how how this will play out in the future with potentially differing weather and hydrologic conditions that we experience with the seasonal cycle that the water levels go through sometimes these things could act in counteracting ways and that's really what makes it such a challenge to really un
derstand how water levels will change over time now that's the science of weather for CBS News Detroit I'm Karen Carter from the water levels to the warm winter I I just feel like the the weather's been all over the place a big big thing when it comes to losing levels on the Great Lakes is just lack of ice I mean when you get ice it shuts down how much you lose you're always going to lose a little bit just from evaporation you always will but when you have a year like this year where you had hor
ribly record setting lack of ice right you lose a lot never cold long enough no no it hopefully we'll jump on back but you know on the upside I guess we're getting a little bit of the beach back there you go all right on the upside now going
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