Lake Erie storm surge

[Ron Carter]

My son is driving through Maumee Ohio near Toledo and heard on the local radio that the water level is down 5' at Toledo and up nearly 10' at Buffalo due to the very high westerly winds today. Probably also aided by a rather stiff pressure differential between the two points at the same time. Don't have a good way to confirm this but the way it has blown all day here it is plausible.

[willmarsh3]

It's entirely plausible. On the Chesapeake a similar thing sometimes happened. The water would be blown out by a north wind. My boat in Deale would get stuck on the bottom. Once my steel ketch was sitting in the mud, leaning over to port away from the dock and the propeller was above water. That was at least a 3 foot drop from normal. I was thinking the leaning boat might pull the dock down with it. I did not dare step on the boat. I returned about 9 hours later to a floating boat and a normal water level.

[redoleary]

It is a phenomenon known as a seiche, whereby, just like you said, the water was blown to the far end of the lake and eventually makes it back to where it belongs.

[Clinton B Chase]

And the air pressure will exert itself on the sea/lake surface such that in low pressure sea level will be higher than areas of high pressure...I think this effect is less a variable than the wind velocity, duration, and fetch.

Clint

[S/V Laura Ellen]

Happened in lower Lake Huron quite a few years ago.
Water in the Yacht Club basin rose by 2', then dropped by 10', and then came back to near normal levels, all within about 3 hours.

[Dan McCosh]

The western end of Lake Erie often sees the water level fluctuate by five feet or more in a strong westerly. That end of the lake is only about 20 ft. deep for some 50 miles, dropping to more than a hundred. The wind simply blows the water away, sometimes causing the main shipping channel to be shut down. Some marinas can leave boats high and dry for a half a day or so. Technically a seiche is something else--a pressure drop that can cause a similar phenomenon. The Lake Erie wind effect can affect the Detroit River and Lake St. Clair as well.

[nonsum_pisces]

The levels are recorded every hour along the Canadian shores. http://www.waterlevels.gc.ca/C&A/gs_selection_e.html

At Bar Point, ON the water level fell by over a meter between midnight and 6 am this morning. At Port Colborne, the level rose over 2.5 m in the same time period. Point Edward only showed a drop of about 0.25 m at the south end of Lake Huron while Belle River showed little change at all on Lake St Clair.

I don't think that the term seiche applies only to water level changes caused by air pressure systems (Since winds are also caused by air pressure systems, how is it possible to differentiate?). The term seiche may also apply to water level changes induced by earthquakes in enclosed bodies of water.

[jollymon]

Happens on Pamlico Sound (NC) fairly frequently. The water level change can be pretty dramatic.

[Ron Carter]

We see a seiche occasionally on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. A couple of feet is extreme. More pressure than wind related because of the short fetch from Wisconsin and the deep water. I didn't realize they are more common on Erie and of larger porportions.

[Gary Bergman]

Aye, many of the sounds and associated rivers in NC, SC and VA have the occurance....Screws with me all the time, as we draw just shy of the average water level... They shut down the ferries in Pamlico all the time to Ocracoke....During the last hurricane last Nov., we were transiting to wilmington, and the winds pulled several feet out of the ICW, and deposited it on Swan Point....

[rbgarr]

Can't depend on anything anymore, can you?

[Gary Bergman]

Good thing it be winter, as that end of the lake is shallow enough as is, so it'd be a tuff sail...We'll be there again next summer; a shameful plug, Fouth of July in Sandusky (Cedar Point)....Hope them seiches' settle down, eh?

[LakeErieSailor]

I can confirm the changes in water levels at the western end of Lake Erie. We live on its shores near Monroe, Michigan, and under strong westerlies this happens quite often. We will have a foot or a bit more water at the seawall, the west wind springs up, and the following morning we're looking at 700' - 800' of sand. We've also seen the phenomenon of the returning water, or seiche, if you will. It begins very subtly as a small ripple, just a few inches or so high, followed by gradual rise in the water level back to its original depth.

[Steve Paskey]

According to Webster's Third New International, a "seiche" is "an oscillation of the surface of a lake or landlocked sea that varies in period from a few minutes to several hours and is thought to be initiated chiefly by local variations in atmospheric pressure aided in some instances by winds and tidal currents and that continues for a time after the inequalities in pressure have disappeared."

I've heard the effect described as being akin to water sloshing in a bathtub from end to end and back. I don't know the details, but there have supposedly been instances when people were washed off a pier at Chicago and drowned as a result of a seiche in Lake Michigan.

[Steve Paskey]

Forgive the C&P, but here's part of a story from the New York Times dated August 26, 1900 ... two people died in Chicago during a seiche.

SEICHE SETS CHICAGO AGOG -- Aug. 25 -- Chicago has always had the greatest confidence in Lake Michigan. It has been there ever since the city was built, and there is evidence which would lead even the most incredulous to believe that it was there some time previous to the arrival of M. Beaubien and the other interesting pioneer Frenchmen. But last Monday afternoon at 4:30 o'clock it was not there. At least, it appeared to be running away from the shore with as much speed as possible. With no obvious reason, and while hundreds of bathers were in the surf, it recoiled, if that word may be used, and seemed to shudder back into itself. For several days past the weather had been excessively hot and without storms, but on the afternoon of the occurrence there was much electricity in the air and a gusty wind blowing from the northeast. The bathers were left high and dry, and were uncertain whether to be amused or terrified at at phenomenon so unheard of.

The lake receded for about 200 or 300 feet, and the children who were bathing could not be deterred from rushing out to paddle in the sand which the foot of man had not previously trod -- at least, not in the memory of living man. Then with sudden and vicious caprice the waters rolled back into their ordinary place and many were submerged in that vast and resistless green wave. Only two lives were lost, however, the other venturesome persons being saved by the efforts of their companions.

Prof. Cobb explains the demonstration as being a seiche -- it is very discouraging to learn that this word is pronounced as if it were spelled "sash" -- a phenomenon well known to certain lakes in Switzerland, Lake Geneva in particular. It is accompanied there, as it was in Chicago, by falling barometric conditions and by a distant cyclone.

The lake has been hysterical all summer, and those who have known it well and lived by it and on it for many years say that they have never known it to be so interesting or so mysterious. About a month ago there was within two hours a gradual decline of the waters amounting to about three feet, as marked on the piles of the piers. On this occasion there was a changing atmosphere, with increasing coolness, but no storm and no electricity. The incident occurred about sunrise, and there was no scientist at hand to make observations, so it is not known at what time the waters returned to their usual height. But in the morning the expanse was calm, and gave no sign of its misdoings over night. On this same day, the lake forced its way recklessly up the Michigan rivers so that many small boats were loosened from their moorings, and the spectacle of rivers with a current running toward their source was observed.

[Buddy Tabor]

I wonder if it has ever traveled to the Niagara and how it might effect the falls. Might be a heck of a show.

[Ron Carter]

I suspect the Niagra River acts as a choke to minimize the impact on the falls.

[Dan McCosh]

I think the eastern end of Lake Erie is less prone to wind-driven changes in water depth due to the fact that it is far deeper--some 200 ft. deep--than the eastern end. I've never heard of a dramatic change in Niagara Falls resulting from this effect. likewise, even a dramatic drop in the level of Lake Erie doesn't seem to affect the current in the Detroit or St. Clair rivers upstream.