Water Temperature Drops 14 Degrees!

The water temperature at Holland St. Park dropped 14 degrees - here's what happened

Here's a separate post on Lake Michigan water temperatures. We've had an event called "upwelling" occur at Lake Michigan. Here's a short bit I wrote about an upwelling event last year: https://www.woodtv.com/weather/bills-blog/upwelling-causes-water-temps-to-tumble/ Check out the graphic below:

Upwelling occurs when an offshore wind (in West Michigan that would be with a north, northeast, east or southwest wind) pushes warmer surface water away from shore and allows colder water from below to rise to the surface.

Thursday AM, the water temperature at Holland St. Park was 72°. This Friday AM, the water temperature was 58°. That's a drop of 14 degrees.

This is a pic. from Holland St. Park around noon on Friday. Note, there’s not a lot of people in the water swimming around. Holland St. Park posted “Yikes” on facebook this morning.

The warmer water isn't far offshore. The Port Sheldon buoy has a water temperature of 70° and the South Haven buoy has a water temperature of 74°. The wind is currently from the south. Tomorrow the wind will shift to the southwest and that should blow the warmer surface water back to the shore.

Smaller inland lakes don’t have upwelling. At Reeds Lake in East Grand Rapids, the water temperature at midday Friday was 80°.

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Have an awesome day!