NASA satellite image shows the Great Lakes are over 80 percent ice

Images taken by NASA’s Aqua satellite showed the Great Lakes were more than 80 percent iced over this month. The image above was taken on February 19th in the early afternoon, and, according to the NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, shows ice covering 80.3 percent of the lakes. Ice cover tends to average around 50 percent in the region, and the present levels haven’t been observed since 1994. “We had an early ice season this year, owing to cold temperatures in the fall and early winter,” said George Leshkevich of the Great Lakes lab. Ice cover even hit 88 percent earlier this month. Thankfully, spring starts in only a matter of weeks.