For many Canadians, the Victoria Day long weekend signifies the unofficial start to the cottage season. But if you’re anticipating spending warm summer days sitting on your cottage dock, a recent article in The Washington Post might dash your dreams a little.
According to the report, one-third of the Great Lakes are still covered in ice—the highest percentage at this time of year in more than 30 years. So how could that affect our summer? Analytical research suggests that the summer months following an unusually icy winter in the Great Lakes region tend to be cooler than normal, which could mean bad news for cottagers on Lake Huron, Lake Ontario, and Lake Superior specifically. (It’s worth noting, however, that the timeframe of the data they’ve used to establish this relationship isn’t long enough to draw firm conclusions.)
Matt Rogers from Commodity Weather Group in the U.S. told The Washington Post that “the frozen lakes are a symptom of a much larger pattern dynamic.” Rogers says he believes the cooler summer cottagers might experience wouldn’t be a direct result of lake ice, but part of a larger weather pattern that helped form—and retain—the ice in the first place.
