The mid-January Arctic blast brought frigid temperatures, helping to firm up a good quantity of ice on Lake Michigan. With the sunshine and more mild conditions over the past weekend, a lot of folks visited the lakeshore to take in the sights of the freshly formed ice with a lot of fantastic pictures: Among the phenomena we see this time of year are ice balls.

Ice coverage for all of the Great Lakes combined was 23.21% – the highest since February 26, 2022, when it was 56.1%. At the beginning of this month, ice coverage was less than 2% across all the lakes.

Seasonal snowfall is now above average for most of West Michigan and ice coverage has increased on the Great Lakes due to last week's arctic blast.

Massive chunks of ice were seen floating in Lake Michigan on Wednesday, January 29, after more than 20 percent of it was covered with ice last week. Footage from Nate’s Dronography shows “massive floating ice boulders,