Steamy Sunrise

For the past 3 winters we have lived in Duluth, I have been meaning to get a picture of the sunrise over the lake. I am so lucky to be able to look at this every morning on my way to work and it is always beautiful. But, on especially frigid mornings, early in the winter before the lake has dropped in temperature, it is absolutely breath taking. The water steams when the temps drop (I believe this am it was about 10 degrees). It only happens a few times until the lake catches up with the colder temperatures. These pictures do not do it justice.

Sometimes the steam will produce its own clouds that hover just above the surface of the lake. Although this morning was a great opportunity to finally take my picture, it did not possess some of the strange steam formations I have seen before - called steam devils. So I looked online to find out more about them, and to find a picture.

Steam devils are produced by convective eddies of condensed water vapor that rise from a lake surface and swirl upward through the overlying cold air (having arisen from the warmer lake body). The wind will often initiate a rotation in the steam, giving it a finger like appearance, similar to a dust devil on land.

Did I mention that we had our first winter snow storm on Dec 2nd? We got about 14.5 inches of snow. Nick and I shoveled for about 2 1/2 hours. Then 3 days later, what was supposed to be only "a few" inches turned into another foot when the winds shifted and created a flash lake effect blizzard. So we shoveled again - I think we will be purchasing a snow blower if this trend continues all winter!