Burns Harbor cleared the Soo Locks downbound at 4:29 this morning, the only vessel at the Soo carrying a September 14 timestamp in the AIS record. Every other passage in the lock list belongs to Sunday or earlier.
She is heading onto Lake Huron, and Huron is not holding still. The NWS has a gale warning in effect for Lake Huron from late tonight through Tuesday afternoon, driven by a low-pressure system swinging east across northern Ontario. High pressure is keeping things quiet through Monday, but the clock on that quiet is short. Burns Harbor is moving into the narrowing end of the calm window.
The gale sequence runs west to east across the system. Lake Michigan's warning goes into effect this evening, ahead of Huron's. Lake Superior's fires Tuesday morning. By Tuesday afternoon, all three northern lakes are under warnings simultaneously from the same system. Lake Erie and Ontario are facing frontal activity of their own on Tuesday but without gale warnings as of this forecast.
Anything that needs to get onto the upper lakes before conditions deteriorate is already committed or already late.
John J. Boland was downbound past Harbor Beach in the predawn hours with an AIS ETA of 7:55 at Port Huron and 12:20 at Detroit. She clears the river well before the Huron gale window opens tonight, which is the better place to be.
BBC Leer locked downbound at the Soo on Sunday morning, was at Vantage Point by 4:49 this morning, and carried an ETA of 11:23 for the Detroit River. BBC Vermont, inbound through the Straits eastbound on Sunday, was in the St. Clair corridor before 5 a.m. today with a Detroit ETA of 10:44. The two salties are running the same southbound corridor a few hours apart.
John G. Munson, last noted downbound at the Soo on Sunday afternoon, showed up westbound through the Straits of Mackinac just after midnight this morning, last reported at 00:41. That puts her onto Lake Michigan today, ahead of tonight's gale warning on that lake.
Lake Huron sits 2.37 feet above Low Water Datum at Harbor Beach. Lake Michigan is at 1.75 feet, Lake Superior at 1.32 feet. Lake Erie leads at 3.00 feet, Ontario at 3.19 feet. The southern lakes are carrying better water than the northern end of the system, which matters for upbound boats that need Superior to be generous. It is not.
Gale warnings cover Lake Michigan from this evening through Tuesday afternoon, Lake Superior from Tuesday morning through Tuesday afternoon, and Lake Huron from late tonight through Tuesday afternoon. High pressure is holding winds light and skies dry across most of the system through Monday. Waves are running 1 to 2 feet on the northern and eastern lakes right now. That changes overnight as the Ontario low tracks in.
A life ring from the S.S. Milwaukee recently turned up at a rummage sale, nearly a century after the railroad car ferry went down on October 22, 1929, with 52 people aboard and no survivors. The Milwaukee ran between Milwaukee and Grand Haven for the Grand Trunk Milwaukee Car Ferry Company before a severe Lake Michigan storm took her. Robby Laurain, executive director of the Society for the Preservation of the S.S. City of Milwaukee, called the find rare. The City of Milwaukee, the sunken ferry's successor, is now a museum ship docked permanently in Manistee.