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Great Lakes
Article:
Great Lakes Freeze Delays Shipping
Season
CTV.ca
CTV.ca News Staff
03/11/03
There's ice hard proof this has been a long cold winter
in eastern Canada. For the first time in years, three
of the Great Lakes have frozen over shoreline-to-shoreline.
Lake Huron and Lake Erie are both completely covered
with ice. So is Lake Superior, the biggest lake in the
world and the deepest and coldest of the Great Lakes.
Ice also covers the Welland Canal and is more than half
a metre thick in parts of the St. Lawrence River.
The thick ice has prompted the St. Lawrence Seaway to
push back the opening of the shipping season until March
31. Seaway officials said it's the first ever delay in
the waterway's reopening since its inauguration in 1959.
"Originally set for March 25, the opening was delayed
for six days because of heavy ice in several areas of
the river as well as commercial navigation safety and
environmental concerns," the Great Lakes St. Lawrence
Seaway System said in a statement.
Pushing back the opening of the Seaway even for a short
time will cause hardships for many companies including
utility companies waiting for coal shipments.
Experts at the Canadian Ice Service of Environment Canada
say it's very unusual for the lakes to freeze from shore
to shore and to stay frozen for so long. It rarely happens
more than once in a decade.
"They're all covered with ice. They're 100 per cent
covered. That's quite unusual," said Claude Dicaire,
senior ice forecaster for the Canadian Ice Service says.
Most of the ice is 40 centimetres to 60 centimetres thick,
though some places on Lake Huron and Lake Superior have
ice about 70 centimetres thick. It's so thick, it may
not be until the end of April before spring temperatures
melt the lake surfaces.
And on the East Coast, the intense cold has led to unusual
amounts of sea ice. The Gulf of St. Lawrence has 25 per
cent more ice than normal. And the Atlantic coast down
to Halifax is covered with sea ice, another unique situation.
Canada's coast guard is reporting the worst ice conditions
in years in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It says its ice-breaking
fleet is going all out to help commercial shipping in
the area.
The coast guard says one of its icebreakers had to help
a Marine Atlantic ferry Monday, after it got stuck in
ice halfway between Cape Breton and Newfoundland.
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