Good News For Lake Superior and Minnesota
by John Laumer, Philadelphia 
on 10.22.07
The National Weather Service announced Friday that the 18.91 inches of rain that fell in Northern Minnesota late summer and early fall surpassed the previous high record set for that State in the year 1900. It's wonderful news. Looks better in Wisconsin and in the Upper Penninsula of Michigan, too. We promise not to call Lake Superior 'Lake Inferior' any more.
But there's still no extra water to send a pipeline south or west. So, forget about that.
At the same time, the climatological observatory at the University of Minnesota's St. Paul campus reported that the first 16 days of October were the cloudiest stretch for that time of year in the 45 years the observatory has been measuring solar radiation, measuring less than three-quarters of average...Data published by the climatology office show that drought has been retreating, particularly in the past week, having largely disappeared along the Canadian border and the North Shore of Lake Superior.
Via::StarTribune.com, "Rain washes out 107-year-old record, but is the drought over? Could be." Image credit:: USGS Drought Monitor, "Number of Rain Days in the past 30 days", Upper Midwest/Great Lakes Region
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What Lake Superior truly needs is a cold sustained winter where it freezes over and prevents evaporation. The rainfall will take care of itself.
The drought is far from over in the northland, it doesn't matter how much rain we get this fall, what will really help us out is more snow. The past several winters have had record low snow levels, and Lake Superior was at its lowest level in 80 years this year.
Marquette had a record high snow fall last year. There needs to be more than a few seasons of heavy precipitation, all the lakes are down.