ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The last time Lake Ontario froze completely was February of 1934, nearly a century ago. With how cold this winter has been, could it freeze over again?

There’s some ice cover around Ontario Beach Park this winter. However, First Alert Meteorologist Nate Morris says it’s unlikely that the lake will completely freeze. Here’s why.

First, we need to take a look at the total ice percentage for the Great Lakes as a whole. We’re around 44% in terms of how much ice is covering all the Great Lakes put together. As far as Lake Ontario goes, the ice coverage is around 34%. Most ice is in the shallowest part of the northeastern corner of the lake.

This can have an effect on our snowfall. For example, Lake Erie is warmer compared to the air above it, so when that cold air moves over, it scrapes up the moisture, creating lake effect snow. But if temperatures dip low enough for long enough, it will freeze over rather quickly because Lake Erie is pretty shallow, and that will cut off that lake effect snow.

But Lake Ontario is much deeper than Lake Erie, around 800 feet compared to Lake Erie’s 200 feet. That means it has a lot more heat capacity and it’s much harder for it to freeze over. We’ve been tracking Lake Ontario’s ice cover via satellites since 1973. Ever since then, only twice has it gotten above 80%, in 1979 and 2015. It’s never reached 100% in that time. Now, there have been historical records reporting that it completely froze over, including around a century ago, 1934, but ever since we started using satellites to track it in a lot more detail, we’ve never seen it.

February and January 2015 were much colder than last January and what this February is expected to be. So, if it didn’t freeze over then, there’s no way it’s going to freeze over this time. No chance.

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