Buffalo Rising Online

May 22nd 2005, 9:29pm By queenseyes

'Now my mind begins to wander to the days back on the farm. I can see my father smiling at me, swinging on his arm. I can hear my granddad's stories of the storms out on Lake Erie where vessels and cargoes and fortunes and sailors' lives were lost.' -James Taylor

I had an interesting conversation with a customer today who just moved here from Seattle. At one point I asked her what she thought of Buffalo, and interestingly enough she said that the thing she was really going to miss about Seattle was the amazing thunder storm season that they have there. So I laid her worries to rest by relaying to her that WNY has some of the most fantastic thunderstorms in the country... so fantastic as a matter of fact that they are mentioned in the lyrics of the song, Millworker, by James Taylor. It was then that another customer chimed in about some pretty obscure facts and statistics about The Great Lakes... and Lake Erie in particular. So for those of you that might be a little rusty on your Lake Erie trivia, here ya go...

The Great Lakes hold an estimated six quadrillion gallons of water -- a fifth, or 20 percent, of all the drinkable water on the surface of Earth. If all the water in the Great Lakes were spread evenly over the continental U.S., the 48 states would be flooded under more than nine feet of water! The surfaces of the lakes total more than 94,000 square miles -- covering an area about the size of the entire state of Oregon. The awesome sizes of the Great Lakes amaze just about everyone seeing them for the first time. These lakes not only look like oceans, they often behave like oceans. They have coastal currents and large, short-term changes in water levels called seiches (pronounced "say-shez") that resemble tides. Like the oceans, the lakes also moderate the temperature of the air and increase the amount of rain or snow that falls on the land around them. Lake Erie is the fourth-largest Great Lake and the world's twelfth largest freshwater lake. Erie is about 210 miles long, 57 miles wide and about 570 feet above sea level. Bordered by Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Ontario, it has 856 miles of shoreline, giving it a surface area of just over 9,900 square miles -- slightly larger than the state of Vermont. Though the lake bottoms out at 210 feet, it averages only 62 feet deep. Because of its saucer-like shallowness, Lake Erie has a reputation among sailors of being quick to "kick up her heels," raising waves of frightening size in even a modest gale. Erie may well be the most used, most enjoyed and perhaps even the most loved lake of the five. It also supports the second-largest sport fishery on the Great Lakes today, and its walleye fishery is generally considered to be one of the best in the world. At Erie's eastern tip near Buffalo, N.Y., its water flows north into the Niagara River, racing downstream at 750,000 gallons per second. In a 35-mile stretch between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, the river elevation drops 326 feet, nearly 200 feet of it in one drop -- Niagara Falls, one of North America's most famous geographic features and one of the natural wonders of the world. After the falls, the river swings east and empties into Lake Ontario, the last of the five Great Lakes.

Photo: View from The Pier looking out over Lake Erie onto the Canadian side. May 21, '05 Statistics/excerpt from Geology of Lake Erie