EPHRAIM, Wis. – Like a slowly draining bathtub, this sparkling inlet of Lake Michigan had seen its clear, cool waters recede for years.
Piers that once easily reached the water had gone high and dry. Fishermen did not dare venture into the shallow water looking for smallmouth bass, lest their propellers scrape bottom. And residents of Ephraim, a village on a peninsula that juts into Lake Michigan, were so alarmed that the county paper asked in a headline in April of last year, “Will the Great Lakes Rise Again?”
But after reaching historic lows in 2013, water levels in the Great Lakes are now abruptly on the rise, a development that has startled scientists and thrilled just about everybody with a stake in the waterfront, including owners of beach houses, retailers in tourist areas and dockmasters who run marinas on the lakeshore.
Lakes Michigan, Huron and Superior are at least a foot higher than they were a year ago, and are expected to rise 3 more inches during the next month. Lake Ontario and Lake Erie are 7 to 9 inches higher than a year ago.
In Ephraim, a town on the waters of Green Bay, residents have marveled at the lake’s comeback, as the water has risen to a level that they had not seen in close to 15 years.
Scientists say the reversal of fortunes for the lakes is partly a result of the most bone-chilling winter in memory for many Midwesterners. The thick and long-lasting ice cover on the lakes kept the water colder and slowed evaporation. Heavy snowfall and a rainy spring allowed the lakes to make even more gains.
The low lake levels in the past decade or more caused a host of frustrating and expensive problems: shoreline erosion, parched wetlands and disruptions to marinas along the Great Lakes.
Residents on the lakes are holding their breath with hope that the gains of recent months will not be undone. Climatologists predict that the levels will rise even more in the coming months, following the natural cycle in which levels are at their lowest in late winter, rise throughout the spring and finally hit a peak in late summer.
An owner of the South Shore Pier in Ephraim, Dave Nelson, surveyed the harbor, where pontoon boats, sailboats and paddle boards were neatly stowed.
“It’s a relief to see so much water now,” he said. “We just hope it stays this way.”
