We've had a fairly frigid cold spell here recently. We didn't get above freezing for nearly 3 weeks, and didn't get above 20 for about a week. There was one day where the high temperature was -4! I'd read a few articles about ice coverage on the Great Lakes, and that got me thinking about driving to Lake Michigan to see what it looked like. We did that many years ago during one of our first winters in northern Illinois.
So last weekend we drove to the Illinois Beach State Park, and here's what we found:
It was very windy (and cold!), which made for choppy conditions on the lake:
There weren't many people there, as you can tell, but we were surprised to see a steady stream of cars entering and leaving the parking lot. One other lady had the same idea as us. She arrived right as we got there, walked around the beach a bit just like us, and then left shortly before we did. We didn't have to stand out in the elements for too long before deciding it was time to go.
Before leaving, we each posed in front of the lake:
And right before we left, the clouds cleared up enough to get a nice view of the Chicago skyline:
So that's what Lake Michigan looked like. I thought there would be more ice, to be honest. The next day I saw a WGN graphic showing the ice coverage on all the Great Lakes:
The temperature got above freezing today, and will hit the mid-40s next week, so we might be around peak ice coverage now.