Great Lakes Ice Free in Middle of Winter

Two years ago, Sophia Schroeder had the best birthday of her life. She stood on frozen Lake Erie near this town on South Bass Island and ate ice cream. Her father dragged her sled across the ice behind his snowmobile.

Later they ate birthday cake around a huge bonfire built right on the ice. "That was my favorite birthday party ever," said Sophia, now 7.

This year, Sophia spent her birthday inside, playing video games with friends. "It's really boring here without ice," she said.

For the first time that anyone in Put-in-Bay could remember, the Great Lakes were ice-free in the middle of winter. Even Lake Erie, the shallowest of the five lakes and usually the first to freeze over, was clear.

"There's essentially no ice at all," said George Leshkevich, a scientist who has studied Great Lakes ice for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, since 1973. "I've never seen that."

The unusually warm weather has upset the routine for hundreds of people who live year-round on islands in Lake Erie. On summer weekends, 14,000 tourists turn South Bass, the largest island on the American side of Lake Erie, into a teeming resort.

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