Pancake ice in Michigan: What is it?
No, pancake ice is not tasty, filling or hot off the griddle
Pancake Ice on Lake Michigan
Ice pancakes formed near the shore of Lake Michigan Sunday in St. Joseph, Michigan. The lows were in the 20s on Sunday and teens Monday. The lake's water temperature was 35 degrees.
Check out the pancakes ice on Lake Michigan Sunday. It is relatively rare and usually occurs in the Baltic Sea and Antarctica on very cold oceans and lakes, according to the U.K. Met Office.
It’s not a pancake. Just ice, shaped like a pancake. When lake or seawater begins to freeze, wave action breaks the layer into chunks. The chunks knock into one another and eventually end up round. The rims around the edges form when sea spray from waves freezes to the edges.
They are usually slushy, soft ice.
The National Weather Service in Chicago showed pancake ice forming in just 24 hours on Lake Michigan Friday.
The NWS also tweeted this photo of larger pancake ice from the UK Met Office.
If cold enough, the pancakes can pile up to create rafts eventually forming larger sheets of ice reported NASA.
Pancake ice in the top picture can pile up to form rafts (lower picture).
(Don Petrovich, Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory.)