Whether Great Lakes water levels are expected to improve this summer depends on who you ask. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Whether Great Lakes water levels are expected to improve this summer depends on who you ask. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
The average water levels of the Great Lakes have dropped about four feet in the last four years. The Army Corps of Engineers says with heavy snowfall in March and heavy rains in recent weeks in some parts of the basin, the Corps is expecting some improvement in those levels. But a meteorologist concedes that the Corps predictions disagree with those of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Cynthia Sellinger is a hydrologist with NOAA. She says because of warmer than normal weather, much of the precipitation evaporated instead of running off into the lakes.
“Without a good spring run-off which gives us our seasonal rise, the lakes will be either at last year’s level or slightly lower.”
And NOAA says for the next three months the Great Lakes basin can expect average precipitation and that won’t help the lakes replenish themselves.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.