Morning of the 2025 Splash-In by Footsore Fotography
The Grand Marais Splash-in is an annual gathering of seaplane pilots from that takes place in the village of Grand Marais next weekend (June 18-21, 2026). There’s events every day with the most fun on Saturday.
Gary is our Michigan in Pictures go-to for all thing Grand Marais & shared this picture last year. Follow Footsore Fotography on Facebook for his latest and view & purchase his work from his website.
The Sky Lit Up at Isle Royale by Lake Superior Photo
The NOAA / National Weather Service Space Weather Prediction Center issued a G3 Aurora Alert this morning after detecting THREE Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) heading our way. Details are in the image or on their website, but the current forecast calls for combined CME arrival around mid-afternoon EDT of June 4, with up to G3 levels possible afterwards, possibly continuing into Friday night. You can read about the various scales used to measure the aurora, but a G3 alert means that it’s possible we could see the lights in EVERY part of the state!!
Shawn shared this photo recently saying “What an amazing night at Isle Royale National Park – the sky lit up✨ The night of 05.28.2025 – memorable!!! You always hope to time Isle Royale visits like this.”
Indeed! So many Northern Lights & UP photos (including this one) available for viewing & purchase at Lake Superior Photo. And if you can’t get out or get a clear sky, Shawn has you covered with regular nighttime live streams of Lake Superior on her Facebook page!
The US Coast Guard says that the USGS Great Lakes District will deploy autonomous drones to support Coast Guard missions on the Great Lakes from May to October this year:
The drones are wind- and solar-powered vessels the Coast Guard will use to monitor the Great Lakes, gather critical weather data for emergency response planning, track illicit activity and keep maritime borders safe.
The autonomous vessels are highly visible, equipped with radar, cameras and collision-avoidance artificial intelligence and monitored continuously by human operators who can take manual control if needed. Sail drones are equipped with sensors focused solely on maritime domain awareness, providing critical information on vessel activities, including vessels in distress or engaged in illegal operations.
Anyone else feeling nervous about the explosion of drones & datacenters we’ve seen over the last year or is that just me?
photo caption: A Saildrone Explorer unmanned surface vessel operates in the Arabian Gulf during Exercise Phantom Scope, Oct. 7, 2022. During the bilateral exercise between the United States and United Kingdom, USVs operated in conjunction with crewed ships and naval command centers in Bahrain. Credit: Navy Chief Petty Officer Roland Franklin
Barefoot Aurora by Lake Superior Photo
The weather has been getting a lot of (justifiable) bad press lately so I figured I’d try and put a little positive spin on news shared by Michigan Public that NOAA is forecasting a potentially strong El Niño weather pattern developing for Michigan this summer:
“Even though the evidence is still early, this could be a very significant event in 2026 and lingering into 2027,” says Daniel Swain, climate scientist with the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources.
A strong El Niño would drive up average global temperatures. The hottest years on record generally occur in years when El Niño is active, because El Niño occurs when the Eastern Pacific is hotter than usual. “Its function in the global earth system is to release heat from the deeper oceans that has been temporarily stored there,” Swain says. “El Niño allows that subducted heat to be unearthed.”
That dynamic played out in a big way in 2023 and 2024, when a long, strong El Niño pattern helped shatter global temperature records. 2023 smashed the record for the hottest year ever recorded on Earth, only to be surpassed by temperatures in 2024.
Last week Shawn shared this photo saying that she’s eagerly anticipating the return of nights watching the aurora barefoot so it looks like El Niño is gonna help with that. You can see lots more amazing photos from Lake Superior Photo on Facebook. You can also visit the Lake Superior Photo website to view & purchase photos and for information about their Marquette gallery along with photography workshops, tours, and guiding.
Miners Castle 1961 – 2013 by Ed Evans
On Thursday morning twenty years ago today the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore reported that the northeast turret of the iconic Miners Castle rock formation had collapsed:
One turret remains on Miners Castle, the best-known feature of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. The collapse was reported via cell phone by fisherman in the area, according to chief ranger Larry Hach. Most of the rock fell north and into Lake Superior, and there were no injuries.
While the rockfall at Miners Castle on April 13 was startling, such events are not rare along the Pictured Rocks escarpment. At least five major falls have occurred over the past dozen years … Rockfalls along the cliffs typically occur in the spring and fall due to freezing and thawing action of Mother Nature.
Ed shared these photos on a Michigan in Pictures post – click to tell him thanks!!
Much more Miner’s Castle on Michigan in Pictures including this awesome look at the underwater part of the rock formation! While the collapse of Miners Castle wasn’t recorded, here’s a video from 2021 showing the collapse of a section of cliff face near Mosquito Beach.
Superior Crystal by Aubrieta Hope
Aubrieta shared this incredible shot of a sunset over Lake Superior in the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. Follow Michigan scenery on Facebook for her latest and view & purchase her work on her website.
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Edmund Fitzgerald, 1971 by Greenmars
50 years on November 10, 1975, the mighty SS Edmund Fitzgerald was lost with all hands in a powerful storm on Lake Superior. At 729-feet long, it was the largest ship on the Lakes at the time and the largest vessel to ever sink in the Great Lakes.
While Gordon Lightfoot’s classic song The Wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald undoubtedly contributed to the legend of the Fitz, the documentary Backstory: The Edmund Fitzgerald from Click on Detroit/Local 4 on the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald explores the myriad ways the ship in woven into Michigan’s culture & consciousness. I really encourage you to make some time to watch this excellent documentary. In addition to exploring the mystery of the wreck and the impact of Lightfoot’s iconic song, it features anecdotes like the fact many of the furnishings were from Hudson’s and a truly beautiful recounting of the stories of the sailors lost. Seriously excellent work!
I color corrected both of Greenmars’ photos of the Fitzgerald. The photo of the Fitzgerald’s bell was taken & shared by Hazelridgegirl & you can see them all and many more at SS Edmund Fitzgerald on Wikimedia Commons.
Much (much) more about the Edmund Fitzgerald on Michigan in Pictures.
Every Michigander knows that the winds of November are to be respected and even feared on the Great Lakes. The State of Michigan says that an estimated 6,000 vessels were lost on the Great Lakes with about a quarter of these canoes, sailing ships, ferries, steamers, and modern ore boats like the mighty SS Edmnd Fitzgerald still remain on Michigan’s 38,000 square miles of the Great Lakes bottomlands.
Michigan in Pictures has a lot of these stories from the Edmund Fitzgerald to the Christmas Tree Ship to the Freshwater Fury aka the White Hurricane of 1913 that happened 112 years ago today. See them all in Michigan shipwrecks on Michigan in Pictures.
Yolanda took this photo a memorial at Whitefish Point Lighthouse to few of those lost aboard the S. S. Edmund Fitzgerald. More in her excellent Somewhere in Michigan gallery.
Aurora in the Mist by Aubrieta Hope
Michigan has been awash in Northern Lights for the last several days, and this morning’s NOAA/NWS Space Weather Alert Email says there’s a good chance much of Michigan can see them tonight as well!
I encourage you to click to subscribe to that email, and also to check out our post about how to see the Northern Lights in Michigan. You will also want to join the Michigan Aurora Chasers group on Facebook where I first saw the photo above from last June at Little Girl’s Point on Lake Superior and where Aubrieta is one of the resident aurora experts. View more of her work on Facebook and on her website. She also shared the photo below yesterday. While I can’t link to it, I wanted to what she wrote as a cautionary tale to remind you to double check your gear before you are go outside in the dark!
On September 30 at 2:00 a.m., I made a once-in-a-lifetime mistake. I set out on a hike to the end of the Hunters Point Trail in Copper Harbor, hoping to shoot the Aurora over Porter’s Island. I was fried from shooting the Aurora three nights in a row, so I packed light: a small camera bag, a headlamp, a flashlight and a fanny pack. Having shot for hours, the battery in the camera and the headlamp were nearly done, but I knew I had a spare camera battery and my Fenix flashlight as backup. Unfortunately, I soon discovered that the battery in my Fenix flashlight was dead. I got exactly one shot of the scene before my camera battery died. This one. I plugged in my spare camera battery but it was dead, too. So, I headed back up the trail in near-darkness with just the stars and Aurora to light my way. Those of you who know about my life-long obsession with flashlights, will think this is a tall tale. But it’s a true story! As is the fact that all my batteries are re-charging now, including the one that operates my brain. How I love these Keweenaw nights!
Aurora over Porter’s Island by Aubrieta Hope
Chapel Beach Storm by Gary McCormick
Although we were just in the neighborhood on Monday for the Seven Wonders of Michigan, I couldn’t resist encouraging you to take a look around at one of my favorite Michigan hikes when Gary shared this photo of a storm rolling into Chapel Beach yesterday! The river you see in the foreground is the Chapel River that flows from Chapel Falls (pictured below).
You can see lots more in Gary’s Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore gallery on Flickr and view & purchase his photos of Pictured Rocks & elsewhere at Footsore Fotography!
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