Brr! While spring is slowly but surely assisted to us in Germany, this frosty satellite intake involuntarily ensures goosebumps. The American metropolis of Chicago can be seen on January 24, 2025. At that time, the city was in the middle of an extreme cold slump with air temperatures of up to minus 26 degrees.
While there was hardly any snow at the beginning of the cold wave on January 19, he gave its way into all the larger quantities a few days later. Between the morning hours of the 22nd and 23rd January, several waves of snowfall laid a white ceiling over the area around Chicago – as is easy to see on the recording. The water of the adjacent Michigansee was also at times white – but due to ice. This grows on the big lakes every winter. However, the expansion of the sea ice and the time of its occurrence can fluctuate considerably.
While the area of Lake Michigan, which was covered with ice at the end of January 2025, moved near the historical average for this season and comprises about 20 percent of the lake in the picture above, it looked very different a few hundred kilometers east. The extent of the sea ice on the Eriesee was well above average at the same time and took about 80 percent of the sea surface. According to news reports, the ice was even thick enough to temporarily take a Canadian freighter to a standstill. In the meantime, however, the situation around Chicago has relaxed again.