Ice on St Joseph Lighthouse by Michigan Native Photography
These photos of the St. Joseph North Pier Outer Lighthouse on Lake Michigan taken just four days apart provide a dramatic example of how fast cold weather & high winds can build ice! For sure follow Michigan Native Photography on Facebook for their latest & more great Michigan photos.
Goodbye Summer 2016 by Scott Glenn
The Old Farmer’s Almanac says that the autumnal equinox arrives tomorrow, Tuesday, September 22 at 9:31 AM:
The word “equinox” comes from Latin aequus, meaning “equal,” and nox, “night.” On the equinox, day and night are roughly equal in length. (See more about this below.)
During the equinox, the Sun crosses what we call the “celestial equator”—an imaginary extension of Earth’s equator line into space. The equinox occurs precisely when the Sun’s center passes through this line. When the Sun crosses the equator from north to south, this marks the autumnal equinox; when it crosses from south to north, this marks the vernal equinox.
Scott took this photo on the final day of the summer of 2016 at the St. Joseph Lighthouse. See more in his massive Lighthouses gallery on Flickr.
Winter Solstice by Scott Glenn
Happy Solstice everyone!
Scott took this photo just after sunset on the winter solstice in 2016 at the St. Joseph Lighthouse!
See the photo bigger and see many more in Scott’s Lighthouses gallery on Flickr!
Also check out more winter solstice & St Joseph Lighthouse pics on Michigan in Pictures!
Golden Light at the Lighthouse, photo by PhotoJacko – Jackie Novak
View Jackie’s photo bigger, see more in her Winter slideshow, and be sure to follow Jackie Novak Photography on Facebook.
PS: You can do a little Throwback Thursday to January 12, 2015 and the Polar Vortex at the St. Joseph Lighthouse.
Winter Wonderland, photo by David Behrens
mLive meteorologist Mark Torregrossa says that severe & sustained cold temps plus heavy lake effect snow are coming to Michigan this week:
Most of the heavy lake effect this winter has come on a northwest wind. The lake effect this week will be brought by a more northerly wind. So the lake effect will fall closer to the Lake Michigan shoreline. The heaviest snow will likely fall in the far southwest corner of Lower Michigan from St. Joseph to Michigan City, IN and South Bend, IN. Also heavy lake effect should fall from Traverse City, Leelanau County and southward to just west of Cadillac.
The heaviest areas of lake effect snow should easily have 6″ of snow, with spots getting up to a foot of snow.
…No area will escape the deep cold. This cold snap won’t be like the other cold snaps this winter that only lasted a few days. This cold snap will start Tuesday and gradually get colder each day into next weekend. By the time temperatures bottom out this weekend, we’ll freeze with highs in the teens and low temperatures in the single digits above or below zero.
The wind will push wind chill temperatures down to -10° to -20° at times in the second half of the week.
David took this last winter at Grand Haven. Check it out bigger and see more in his Home Sweet Home slideshow.
More about the Grand Haven Pier Light along with a crazy photo of the waves that make these ice formations on Michigan in Pictures!
St. Joseph Lighthouse, photo by John McCormick
Time to get your 2016 Calendars! In addition to being a great way to share a daily dose of Michigan with the people on your gift list, most photographers ship them directly for you making gift-giving easier. If you are a Michigan photographer who has a calendar for sale or know of one who does, please post link to any you know of in the comments below or on this post at the Michigan in Pictures Facebook!
The photo above is for January 2016 from one of my favorites is one that a reader recently asked about: The Michigan Wild & Scenic Wall Calendar by John McCormick of Michigan Nut Photography. You can see them all and purchase the calendar at Michigan Nut Photography. Be sure to follow Michigan Nut on Facebook too!
More about the St. Joseph Pier light on Michigan in Pictures.
St Joseph Sunset, photo by PhotoJacko
We’ve all been seeing a bunch of photos from the frozen St. Joseph Pier, so I thought it would be good to give you a little primer about which is which. It took a little digging, but Dave Wobster at Boatnerd.com has the best info on St. Joseph North Pier Outer & Inner Lights:
The present range lights were built in 1907 when the north pier was extended 1000-feet necessitating two lights which serve as range lights. Previously, there had been lights erected as early as 1832 at this location. A round stone tower, built in 1859, was replaced by the present lights.
Outer – (Front Range) is a round, cast-iron plate 35-foot tall tower topped by a round watch room and 10-sided lantern room. The tower is painted white, and the lantern room is black. The fixed light is exhibited via a Fifth-Order Fresnel lens and two brass reflecting panels manufactured by Barbier & Benard of Paris. The light is visible for 180 degrees. (above)
Inner – (Rear Range) was built in 1898 and rebuilt 1907. A 26-foot square steel-framed fog signal building encased in 3/8″ cast iron plates with an octagonal light tower on a hip roof. The helical bar lantern room contains a Fourth-Order fixed Fresnel lens with a brass reflector manufactured by Sautter & Company of Paris. The building is white with a red roof, and the lantern room is painted black. The light is visible over a range of 270 degrees. (below)
The lights are connected by an elevated catwalk that extends from the shore to the outer light. The walkway was constructed to permit the light keepers access to the light during rough weather.
Yesterday I featured a photo by Jackie as the cover of the Absolute Michigan Facebook page. Click the photos to view them bigger on Flickr, see more in her Winter slideshow and follow her at Jackie Novak Photography on Facebook.
St Joseph Lighthouse, photo by PhotoJacko
Above the ice encrusted St. Joseph pier, photo by Christopher Kierkus
As previously referenced, the fantastic ice on St. Joseph Pier has become a Michigan winter icon. Christopher took this shot with his drone SPIKE, a DJI Phantom 2 quadcopter and a GoPro Hero 3+ Black edition camera. I found it shared on Michpics regular Craig Sterken’s page – he’s the one bending down to get a lens out of the case.
Christopher shares that getting these photos can be more than a little harrowing:
We photogs are a little nuts … especially scary is walking the little “ice path” around the inner light to get to the outer part. One slip up there and you’re in the soup.
View the photo bigger on his Facebook and see more of his work including some more really cool aerials at PhotoDocGVSU on Flickr … or head straight for SPIKE’s pictures!
Encased, photo by John Burzynski
While the St. Joseph Lighthouse just made an appearance in my 2014 roundup, sometimes you can’t have too much of a good thing. Speaking of good things, there’s a webcam at the St. Joseph lighthouse that allows you to look in on this incredible scene whenever you want!
View John’s photo bigger on Flickr and see more in his Great Lakes Lighthouses slideshow.
PS: Also a shout-out to Michigan in Pictures regular John McCormick whose 2013 pic of the St. Joseph Light has (according to USA Today) “gone viral” as the face of the Polar Vortex!
Lots more lighthouses on Michigan in Pictures.
Frozen in Time, photo by photofrenzy2000
2014 will never come this way again, so for better or worse, here are some 2014 highlights from Michigan in Pictures…
The most popular post was Cougar Cam Confirmation, which was published on November 7th. Since I’ve been sounding the “cougars live in Michigan” horn for several years now, it’s gratifying that the DNR is now on board.
With 77,000 views on Facebook, the cougar cam was the most popular post there too, followed very closely by Space Weather and Starbreeze that benefited from the Lake Superior Photo bump!
Shawn of Lake Superior Photo checked in with the second most popular pic, Paradise is the nickname of this place, a photo that features one of the amazing & out-of-the-way Michigan gems that I learned about in 2014.
The third most popular picture & story was one from close to my home, the astonishing The Ice Caves of Leelanau that drew tens of thousands of people to the Leelanau Peninsula last winter to see them. You can click that link to see Ken’s photos or save yourself the time and head over to his site to purchase his book, The Ice Caves of Leelanau.
Weighing in at number four was Winter at Tahquamenon Falls by John McCormick aka MichiganNut. While this photo didn’t make his 2015 wall calendar, a dozen other great ones did!
Closing out the top five was the Blood Moon and the Lunar Eclipse Tetrad by Michael Seabrook. The first two of these four total lunar eclipses are in the books, but April 4 & September 28, 2015 are still to be seen.
The top commented post was Michigan in Pictures is a blog, folks, which I posted after getting a bunch of negative comments after sharing a photo from a group working against the Keystone XL Pipeline coming through Michigan. It made me very happy to get support for protecting the beautiful natural heritage features on Michigan in Pictures from so many readers … and also to share the awesome photo of our cats!
View this photo from December of 2010 at the St. Joseph Lighthouse bigger and jump into photofrenzy2000’s slideshow for more awesome shots!
Michigan in Pictures 