The recent cold snap that descended on much of North America has dramatically increased the amount of surface ice across portions of the Great Lakes region.

While it’s not enough to shut off the lake-effect snow process, the increase in ice is a positive step toward curtailing snow squalls for portions of the region.

NOAA reported that about 23.2 percent of the Great Lakes were covered by ice as of Thursday, Jan. 23.

This is just shy of the region’s normal ice coverage of about 24 percent by this point in January, and just over half the average annual peak of 40-45 percent which occurs by the middle of February.

Lake Erie saw the biggest increase in ice coverage out of the five lakes.

Daily analysis showed ice covering 28.1 percent of Lake Erie on Jan. 15. Just over one week later, by Jan. 23, ice coverage there had ballooned to 85.1 percent. This number is likely to climb higher in the coming days as subfreezing temperatures persist for a little while longer.

A distant second place was Lake Huron, which saw 25.3 percent ice coverage as of Thursday’s analysis. Lake Michigan followed with about 21.5 percent of its surface iced over. Lakes Ontario and Superior lagged behind with 13.4 and 8.2 percent coverage, respectively.

Lake St. Clair, usually the first and only body of water here to completely freeze over, reached 100 percent coverage Thursday.

Ice growth on the Great Lakes requires long spells of subfreezing temperatures like we’ve seen of late. The shallower lakes—Erie and Huron—are the first to build significant surface ice, with the deeper lakes retaining heat longer into the winter months.

We’ve already surpassed last year’s maximum ice coverage of just 16 percent, a value which placed the year among the bottom of the ranks since regular recordkeeping began back in 1973.

Header image of the Great Lakes on Jan. 20, 2025, courtesy of NOAA/NASA.

Click here to view the video