Western Lake Erie’s summer 2024 algal bloom appears to remain strong going into October, though it’s unclear for the time being if it’s started to recede.
The latest bulletin issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Monday said the bloom continues to have an approximate area of 500 square miles, one of the larger of the season. Its exact location is unknown because extensive cloud cover has blocked much of the satellite imagery taken since Sept. 21.
The bloom canvassed an approximate 500 square miles last week too.
It peaked at 620 square miles in August, officials said.
Though harder to track because of the cloud cover, the bloom is known to go from Monroe to Reno Beach, Ohio, NOAA said in its bulletin.
Low concentrations of cyanobacteria — or blue-green algae — continue to be along the northern shore of western Lake Erie and from Catawba Island into the lake’s central basin. The bloom also is known to extend across the Canadian shore east of Point Pelee.
Lake Erie’s Sandusky Bay continues to have a mixture of algal species.
A summer western Lake Erie bloom extending into October isn’t that unusual, and appears to be happening with more frequency as climate change creates conditions that allow blooms to arrive earlier and stay later, according to research by climate scientists.
This year’s bloom was established by June 24, the earliest on record, NOAA said earlier this summer.
Modern record-keeping began in 2002.
The 2022 bloom lasted well into November, the only time so far that it’s gone that deep into the season. It was able to do that by transitioning from one species to another, but both were capable of producing toxins.
That bloom is the only one so far which outlasted NOAA monitoring efforts. The federal agency issued a statement on Nov. 16 of that year, stating that it was done monitoring the bloom for that season even though some of it was still out there.
Rick Stumpf, an oceanographer from NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science in Maryland, who’s been in charge of monitoring efforts since they began, said back then that the resiliency of the 2022 bloom created a new research question for scientists, calling it “odd” and “unusual.”
On Monday, Mr. Stumpf told The Blade this year’s bloom appeared to be losing strength, as it normally would this time of year, as last week’s clouds and rain moved in.
“The system coming through should clear out the clouds, and we may have a better idea in mid week,” Mr. Stumpf said.
Justin Chaffin, Ohio Sea Grant and Ohio State University Stone Laboratory research director, said he’s looking forward to the next clear satellite image.
“The bloom is still out there, and it remains to be seen whether the northeast winds and cooler weather from [Hurricane] Helene impacted it or not,” Mr. Chaffin said. “Field crews will be out tomorrow. Based on the weather forecast, we might not get a good satellite image until later in the week.”
University of Toledo Lake Erie Center Director Tom Bridgeman said UT’s research vessel will be back on the water looking for signs of the bloom in the Toledo area Tuesday morning. He said it was unable to get out last week.
“Two weeks ago, the bloom was still there at all of our sampling locations,” Mr. Bridgeman said.
Mike McKay, a former Bowling Green State University researcher now running the University of Windsor’s Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research, said this year’s bloom is a little unusual in that it has shown up along the eastern side of Point Pelee in “an area where we don’t often see blooms form.”
Although toxin levels pose no threat to drinking water systems, NOAA continues to urge people to keep themselves and their pets away from scums — that is, areas where algal blooms form thick mats, often because of winds. That’s where toxin concentrations are often highest.
First Published September 30, 2024, 7:35 p.m.
