
There A Sheet of Ice Larger Than Chicago Currently Floating on Lake Michigan
The coldsnap of 2025 has certainly been a memorable one with predicted extreme cold and brutal windchill values blanketing much of the nation.
The Great Lakes have reacted to the cold with some interesting ice phenomena.
👇🏼BELOW: These Are the Incredible and Underrated Beaches of Lake Michigan's Southern Coast👇🏼
In addition to pancake ice and dangerous ice shelves at the shore, one drone operator found a free-floating sheet of ice estimated to be as large as the city of Chicago skimming the top of Lake Michigan along the current.
Chicago is 227 square miles of land area. So that's a huge sheet of ice.
Chicago Sized Ice Sheet on Lake Michigan - January 2025
The video comes from drone operator Timeless Aerial Photography. They often capture incredible natural scenes along the southern coast of Lake Michigan and this one is no exception.
READ MORE: Pancake Ice Spotted in Multiple West Michigan Locations During Brutal Coldsnap
The video shows the edge of the ice sheet and the channel of water that separates it from the main ice shelf along the shoreline.
Something rarely seen—a giant chunk of shelf ice, larger than Chicago, moving with the current.
The ice is located off of Michigan City, Indiana - the same location where police needed to shoo away visitors that were seen walking on the unstable ice shelf. This is the exact danger of shelf ice, it can become unstable and unmoor from the ice that forms along the coast.
As for the lake durning more favorable weather, check out these beaches found along the bottom of Lake Michigan
These Are the Incredible and Underrated Beaches of Lake Michigan's Southern Coast
These Very Special Streets Run Directly Along the Coast of Lake Michigan
Gallery Credit: Eric Meier