The hot and sunny weather the past month has pushed the water temperature on the Great Lakes and inland lakes to near record levels for so early in the summer season.  Several people have told me that in fact at times the water on their ponds and small lakes has been so warm that it hasn’t even been refreshing or cooling to take a swim.  Basically it’s been like bath water.  Of course this has been hard on some fish species with fish kill reported in a number of areas around the Midwest.

The water temperature on the Great Lakes ranges from the upper 70s F in southern Lake Michigan to the low 70s in northern Lake Michigan.  Lake Superior is running from the upper 50s to mid 60s.  With a good month yet of summer warming yet before it starts to slowly cool, I imagine we probably will see some 80 degree water showing up in Lake Michigan by the end of July!  Lake Superior might even get into the 70 degree range in some of the shallower near-shore areas. You can track the Great Lakes’ water temperatures from the following link.  http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/dsdt/cwtg/glakes_tmap.html

On a different note we might see some much needed water falling through the warm air the next few days.    A weak front will slowly push in from the west and bring us our best chance of rain Friday evening through Saturday afternoon.  It certainly won’t be a c0ntinuous washout type rain.  Rather it would be several intermittent rounds of rain spaced out by hours of dry weather.  While the amounts aren’t expected to be huge, generally .10 to .50″ is anticipated.  There could be a few spots over .50″ through Saturday evening in the western half of Wisconsin especially.  See the map below from HPC for a better glimpse at the potential rain. 

Posted under Drought, Ecology, Environment, forecast, Nature, Recreation & Sports, Summer