The run-off from this past weekend's record-breaking rains is impacting Lake
Michigan. Water levels have risen an inch this month alone, U. S. Army Corps of
Engineers meteorologist Keith Kompoltowicz tells us. It's an increase that has
occurred at a time of the year when lake levels typically fall an inch or two.
Kompoltowicz estimates as much as 877.5-billion additional gallons of water now
reside in Lake Michigan. With September rainfall across the lake's drainage basin 227
percent of normal to date and water from last weekend's rains still working through
tributaries that feed into the mammoth water body, the full impact of the recent
downpours may not yet be fully reflected in lake levels.
Northeast winds Sunday piled water up along the northeast Illinois shoreline
temporarily boosting water levels there 12 to 18 inches .
ERUPTION OF ALASKA'S KASATOCHI VOLCANO BEHIND COLORFUL SUNSETS
Beautiful sunsets worldwide since late August are being attributed to an eruption of
the Kasatochi Volcano on Alaska's Aleutian Islands. Stratospheric winds have
distributed volcanic ash which refracts sunlight producing the array of warm colors at
sunset.
--Tom Skilling, Chief Meteorologist, WGN-TV/Chicago Tribune
