Evanston, August 15

No Lake swims for me the last two weeks since I was swimming out of town various places. As far as I can tell no one else on our Lake crew was out either.

I talked Jody and Ellen to join Joe and me at the lake this morning. It was bright, sunny and warm with the water perfectly flat by shore and only light ripples further out. Only one problem, the water was 58 degrees.

Apparently we are having our annual August inversion. Most years at this time we do have a few days like this with 58 not uncommon, even if the Lake had been in the 70's earlier. Usually it is the presence of warm surface water and west winds that causes the surface water to fall and new water from below to come up near shore. Since the Lake has never hit 70, at least not according to my measurement and I am the only reliable source, I was somewhat surprised at having such a strong inversion. Also there were some news items about uncommonly cold Lake water earlier in the week and I figured that whatever inversion we had should have occured. The winds have been from the west, but not strong and we have had warm sunny days this last week, so the Lake SHOULD have warmed up. But I guess I have been swimming the Lake long enough to know that the Lake rarely does what it SHOULD do.

Anyway, Jody and Ellen tested the water and opted to stay and enjoy the beach. For safety reasons I suggested to Joe that we do a half swim and see how we felt. So I did about half a mile and got out, Joe felt fine and did another half mile lap but was starting to feel cold. Joe drove us home without incident so he must have been OK, but his hands were still cold to our touch when we got home.