OK nautical types - what did that freighter hit in Lake Superior?

[Peartree]

I grew up in Duluth and often swam in the Lake at Park Point when I was a kid. When I was swimming with some friends a body washed up onshore about a 1/2 block from where we were. They finally identified the guy and he had been missing for around 90 years!

The mean average temp of Lake Superior is 37º F. It will warm up in areas where it is shallow like Park Point. The North Shore is mostly basalt and granite. In some areas it gets deep really fast. Three feet offshore ten feet or more deep. And once you get below the thermocline, about 3 feet, it is 37º.

There's a second thermocline between 60 and 80 feet. Below that, the temperature, at least in Lake Huron, was just barely above freezing... and da#n cold in a wetsuit.

 

[Greg Furtman]

There's a second thermocline between 60 and 80 feet. Below that, the temperature, at least in Lake Huron, was just barely above freezing... and da#n cold in a wetsuit.

The north shore of Lake Superior gets deep very fast. While most of the south shore is shallower, except around the Keweenaw Peninsula. Shallow = warm. Deep = cold. So the thermocline along the North Shore is much closer to the surface than along the South Shore.

 

[Peartree]

The north shore of Lake Superior gets deep very fast. While most of the south shore is shallower, except around the Keweenaw Peninsula. Shallow = warm. Deep = cold. So the thermocline along the North Shore is much closer to the surface than along the South Shore.

My point was that there can be more than one thermocline, especially where it's deep.

 

[Greg Furtman]

My point was that there can be more than one thermocline, especially where it's deep.

So in Lake Superior's case very cold and damned cold?

 

[Peartree]

So in Lake Superior's case very cold and damned cold?

I don't doubt it. My experience in Lake Huron, as I mentioned, was that below the second thermocline the temperature is very near freezing. I would suspect that would be the case in any of the lakes that were more than 80 to 100 feet deep.