But what Leavitt was doing the February day was a rare occurrence last winter across the Great Lakes. The long-term average for ice coverage on all five Great Lakes -- Superior, Michigan, Erie, Huron, and Ontario -- is 54 percent. Last winter, ice covered only 19.5% of the lake's surface is a near record low.
One overly warm season isn't necessarily a harbinger of inevitable. But increasingly, scientists can pick out patterns in the scattershot records of change from across the Great Lakes, and those patterns are pointing toward a sobering conclusion: The 2019/2020 winter, with its faint traces of ice, is likely just a taste of the future.