The lake from above · the surface, in three dimensions
The lake in cross-section · Toledo → Buffalo
The slosh-o-gram · end-to-end tilt, past 5 days
Why Erie sloshes. A seiche (pronounced saysh) is a standing wave in an enclosed basin — the same thing that happens when you carry a full baking pan too fast. Erie is the perfect pan: 241 miles long, averaging just 62 feet deep, aligned with the storm winds. Sustained southwesterlies drag surface water toward Buffalo, tilting the lake; the record events have piled up differences of more than 15 feet between the two ends. When the wind stops, the lake rebounds and oscillates at its natural period of roughly 14 hours. The worst in history was October 18, 1844, when a night seiche topped Buffalo's 14-foot seawall and killed 78 people. In December 1985 a storm drove the water at Buffalo up 8 feet, flooding the waterfront. During the Christmas blizzard of 2022 the gauge at Buffalo jumped 6 feet in hours while Toledo dropped below its low-water datum. On a calm week, the chart above is a gentle ripple of inches — but keep an eye on it when a front comes through.