The Great Lakes are known for some crazy weather patterns – glass-like conditions, then 8- to 10-foot rollers a few hours later. Or the "Three Sisters" – a set of three devastating waves in quick succession that were thought to have sunk the Edmund Fitzgerald.
But what happened yesterday was one of the rarest of all Great Lakes phenomena. A powerful cold front blew up the length of Lake Erie from the southwest, with sustained winds of 50 mph and gusts to 70. That created a "seiche" in the eastern end of the lake, which occurs when powerful winds push surface waters toward one end of a waterbody.
The result was a rapid 8-foot rise in water level within 3 hours at the eastern end of the lake near Buffalo, N.Y., and a resultant 5-foot drop on the western end near Toledo, Ohio. It was the second-highest seiche level ever recorded by the National Weather Service.
