GREAT LAKES

Winter weather will bring heavy and blowing snow to the Midwest and Great Lakes, while California finally sees a break following weeks of record conditions.

Good afternoon, Chicago. Here's what is happening today.

An ageing pipeline is at the centre of a heated debate about environmental and energy concerns.

Christmas weekend will plunge into a deep freeze thanks to a dangerous blizzard that is intensifying into a powerful bomb cyclone as it barrels east across the United States.

Most of Michigan is under a blizzard warning or winter storm warning ahead of Christmas 2022. See how much snow is predicted across the state.

Numerous states are facing Blizzard and Winter Storm Warnings as high winds, blowing snowfall and icy temperatures are impacting millions of Americans.

During the course of the storm, temperatures could plummet by 25 to 35 degrees Fahrenheit in "only a few hours," the weather service warned.

Less than two weeks after a bright fireball lit up the sky above the Great Lakes, another spectacular meteor impressed skywatchers in the Northeast.

Heavy snow is expected from the Rocky Mountains to the Great Lakes, while the South is in danger of potential tornado outbreaks in the coming days. The Weather Channel's Mike Bettes has the forecast.

Happy Monday and welcome to another edition of Beyond The Forecast!

Happy Monday and welcome to another edition of Beyond The Forecast!

The Erie Canal opened Oct. 26, 1825 and proved one of the most successful public works projects in American history, reshaping large swaths of the national economy.

Swimming over dead bodies, haunted shipwrecks, and a mysterious floating stump

Winter is likely to bring drier conditions across Southern states and wetter weather for areas including the Great Lakes region and Pacific Northwest.

Cold weather and snow are forecast across the eastern Great Lakes and interior Northeast regions through Friday as record warmth comes to an end over the Northwest.

Cold weather is forecast across the U.S., with more than 70 million Americans under frost or freeze advisories. Snow is expected in Great Lakes and Northeast.

About 50 people gathered at Elliot Park in Evanston to help raise awareness about the dangers of Enbridge’s fossil fuel pipeline projects.

Wet weather is expected to move over the Southwest and southern Texas regions over the course of the next few days, bringing the possibility of isolated flooding.

Bill sets up a state fund to compete for federal money, including $230 million for port infrastructure projects available from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Florida may not be the best place to retire if you want low cost of living, according to Bankrate. Here are the top 7 most affordable states to retire.

One front will be responsible for some changeable weather in less-than 24 hours

Shoreman left Youngstown, New York at roughly 4 p.m. ET on Friday and finished his trip across Lake Ontario at around 1 p.m. Saturday in Toronto.

Mike Shoreman said he is ready for his final conquest, one he hopes will inspire millions around the world who have struggled with mental health.

Lake Michigan was still 8 inches above average in July but 26 inches below the high in 2020.

Endangered piping plovers enjoyed a record breeding season on the Great Lakes, with at least 149 wild chicks reaching the flying stage.

It took nearly 28 hours and more than 44 miles, but a Canadian man is now one step away from completing his quest to cross all five Great Lakes via paddleboard.

Mike Shoreman will depart from Union Pier, Michigan on Tuesday night, with plans to finish along Chicago’s North Avenue Beach at around noon Wednesday.

Port Milwaukee has positioned itself as a top destination for cruise ships, and other Great Lakes cities are looking to do the same by increasing docking capacities and building new facilities.

An avid paddleboarder, Mike Shoreman was told he could never paddleboard again. But he didn’t pay attention to that edict and now is trying to make history.

A Houston dredging company has been ordered to pay a $1 million fine for an oil spill that occurred when a subcontractor cut through a pipeline during Louisiana barrier island restoration work in 2016.

Illinois officials hope a new name for Asian carp, a prolific invasive species, will gut the fish’s numbers and reduce the threat it poses to the Great Lakes.

Clusters of storms continue to dive south Tuesday, while high heat remains each day this week

More than 100 million Americans are being warned to stay indoors if possible as a heat wave settles over states stretching through parts of the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes and east to the Carolinas.

We got an inside look at the United States Navy's 10-week basic training program. Chief video correspondent Graham Flanagan spent five days inside Recruit Training Command Great Lakes, where he observed different companies at various stages of training at the facility located about 35 miles north of Chicago. Recruits must pass a physical assessment and a swim qualification before they train in seamanship, firefighting, and weapons training. They're also exposed to tear gas inside a confidence chamber where they learn to correctly wear gas masks. Training culminates with “Battle Stations” an all-night event that takes place on a mock Navy destroyer ship designed by companies who have created theme park attractions for Walt Disney World. After completing the event, recruits officially become sailors when they receive their US Navy ball caps.

The sudden reemergence of a once-feared rebel group has raised fears of another wide-reaching conflict in the volatile Great Lakes region.

His remains will be provided to the Field Museum’s avian department to be available for future studies that contribute to the recovery of the Great Lakes piping plovers.

Monty died earlier this month at Montrose Beach while waiting on Rose, who never returned. Imani, one of last summer’s chicks, was seen in the sand not far from where his father took his last breaths.

People gather to remember Monty, a Great Lakes piping plover, at Montrose Beach on May 25, 2022, in Chicago. The endangered bird died on May 13.

The Great Lakes are the world’s largest collective bodies of fresh water, and feature many picturesque nature spots, so it always has seemed like a natural area for cruise ships to venture.

Fanatics, which has an estimated valuation of $27 billion, wants to transform into a $100 billion company that offers online sports gambling.

It’s a good bet there aren’t many bathtubs — if any at all — that could fit this rubber duck.

Severe weather brought a tornado and hail as large as softballs to Arkansas.

A storm system moving through the central U.S. on April 12 will bring a high risk of wildfires along with its potential for destructive weather.

The NFL, other major sports leagues, players unions and team owners are leading the latest round of investment in Fanatics

A study by a team of scientists at Florida International University shows how the fearsome predators hunt together.

Scientists have fanned out across the Great Lakes' frozen surfaces to learn what happens underwater during winter.

Bridget Wheelock knelt onto the frozen surface of Lake Huron's Saginaw Bay, reached a gloved hand into the frigid water below and pulled out a large chunk of ice. “Oh, yeah,” said her colleague, Matt Sand, leaning in for a look before holding open a collection bag as Wheelock slid the fragment inside.

Good morning, Chicago. Here are some of the top stories you need to know to start your day.

Michigan would seem the last place to worry about water shortages.

The weather whiplash marked the second time in less than a week that there was a temperature swing of more than 40 degrees in 24 hours.

Freezing rain and drizzle is disrupting travel from Central Texas to the Great Lakes, with ice-glazed roads leading to hundreds of traffic accidents, including one in Kentucky that killed a toddler.

President Joe Biden has signed a bill granting a three-week extension of government funding and allowing Congress more time to reach an overdue deal financing federal agencies through the rest of the fiscal year.

Heavy snow from the Rockies will expand northeastward to the central Plains Wednesday night, then to the Great Lakes region Thursday.

Winter is changing across the Great Lakes region, and scientists want to know what that will mean.

What's happening in the Great Lakes during those long, frigid months when they're often covered partially or completely with ice? “We've been ignoring winter on the Great Lakes for so long,” said Ted Ozersky, a lake biologist with the University of Minnesota Duluth, who announced the “Winter Grab” expedition Thursday. Crews from more than a dozen U.S. and Canadian universities and government agencies will make their way onto frozen sections of lakes Erie, Huron, Michigan, Ontario and Superior during the week of Feb. 14.

The Biden administration's new infrastructure package will pump more funding into two high-profile Great Lakes projects.

A project that will boost Great Lakes shipping in a crucial bottleneck and another intended to protect the lakes from invasive carp will get big funding increases under the Biden administration's infrastructure package, officials said Thursday. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it would pump $479 million into construction of a new navigational lock at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, expanding a complex that enables vessels to haul bulk cargo between Lake Superior and the other Great Lakes.

A winter storm has brought about 9 inches of snow to the Southeast and is now heading to north. Powerful winds and heavy rain is expected. Vanessa Murdock has the forecast.

The lake's fish contain what are known as "forever chemicals." Will the government’s recent steps to regulate this type of chemicals be enough?

The Shedd Aquarium's Centennial Commitment will fund the renovation of galleries, educational programs and new approaches to combat climate change.

Snow showers dusted a variety of locations across the Northeast on Nov. 23.

Experts say water in the Great Lakes is warmer than average and less ice cover is expected this winter, but lake-effect snow trends are difficult to predict.

Roads in Bangalore, India, were buried under several feet of water on Nov. 22 after several days of torrential rain soaked the city. Dozens of people in the region have reportedly died or are missing as a result of flooding.

In the wake of a potent cold front that will track through the Northeast early Thanksgiving week, the coldest air of the season will bring temperatures plummeting to levels more typical of mid-December to the Great Lakes region and Northeast. The wintry chill will also fuel the lake-effect snow machine, sending snow squalls barreling across the region. As a storm brings rain to the Ohio Valley and into the Northeast through Sunday night, the cold front associated with the storm will sweep throug

Rich Luterman has the forecast.

Video shows a car underwater as parts of Northwestern Washington state experience flooding. Video credit: Travis Janeway

Everything remains quiet for the tropics in the Atlantic basin and is expected to stay that way over the next five days.

Schools are closed for a week in New Delhi as winter pollution levels remain dangerously high. Delhi is ranked one of the world's most polluted cities, with a hazardous melange of factory and vehicle emissions and smoke from agricultural fires turning its air a toxic grey every winter.

Steve Paulson says today will start off cloudy and then become warmer with temps in the 70s.

Some parts of the Northern Great Lakes region were greeted by their first significant snowfall of the season earlier this week, but not even the arrival of the fluffy white stuff could mask these historic times for the Great Lakes themselves.

Maybe you’re in Michigan, with family in Wisconsin (or vice versa). Or perhaps you’re planning some sort of trip across state lines, and you came across the idea of using a ferry to save some time around the Great Lakes.

Those along the Great Lakes and rivers near Detroit and Canada have taken notice of a special boat that’s been sailing those waters this summer.

Chapman said she has been without power for two nights and is using the propane to keep warm. The worst U.S. power outages were in Texas, affecting more than 2 million homes and businesses. Texas officials said more than 400,000 doses due now will not arrive until at least Wednesday because of the storm. Several cities had record lows: In Minnesota, the Hibbing/Chisholm weather station registered minus 38 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 39 degrees Celsius). Sioux Falls, South Dakota, dropped to minus 26 Fahrenheit (minus 26 degrees Celsius).

(AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File)TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. – Michigan's environmental agency said Friday it has approved construction of an underground tunnel to house a replacement for a controversial oil pipeline in a channel linking two of the Great Lakes. AdThe project requires permits from the state Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. “We have issued permits designed to ensure that if a tunnel is constructed, it will be in strict compliance with relevant statutes and adhere to stringent protections against impacts to the Great Lakes,” Clark said. State officials emphasized the tunnel project was a separate legal matter from the dispute over the existing pipeline, which was laid in 1953. It has taken steps to prevent future anchor strikes and says the tunnel project would eliminate that danger.

The structure on the Des Plaines River is a choke point between the Illinois River, which is infested with the invasive carp, and Lake Michigan. The next step is developing design and engineering specifications, expected to take three to four years and cost about $28.8 million. Under the new agreement, the Corps will pay $18 million and Michigan $8 million. Both states will collaborate with the Corps as it designs the complex mechanism, which will require thousands of pages of drawings. Government agencies, advocacy groups and others have long debated how to prevent them from reaching the Great Lakes, where scientists say they could out-compete native species for food and habitat.

If you’re driving in your car a lot today, don’t be surprised if you hear more Gordon Lightfoot than usual.

FILE - This June 30, 2017 remote camera image released by the U.S. Forest Service shows a female gray wolf and her mate with a pup born in 2017 in the wilds of Lassen National Forest in Northern California. Trump administration officials on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2020, stripped Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in most of the U.S., ending longstanding federal safeguards and putting states in charge of overseeing the predators. (U.S. Forest Service via AP, File)

A Michigan regulatory panel refused Tuesday, June 30, 2020, to grant quick permission to run a new oil pipeline beneath a channel that connects two of the Great Lakes, deciding instead to conduct a full review. Enbridge filed an application in April with the Michigan Public Service Commission to relocate a segment of its Line 5 that extends beneath the Straits of Mackinac, which links Lakes Huron and Michigan. (Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy via AP)TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. A Michigan regulatory panel on Tuesday refused to grant quick permission to run a new oil pipeline beneath a channel that connects two of the Great Lakes, deciding instead to conduct a full review. The state Public Service Commission's decision involved a proposed replacement for a segment of Enbridge's Line 5 that extends beneath the Straits of Mackinac, which links Lakes Huron and Michigan. Enbridge filed an application in April with the Public Service Commission to relocate the underwater section of Line 5 into the proposed tunnel.

How about escaping to a lighthouse in the middle of the Great Lakes? Right in the middle of Lake Michigan, 7 miles from the nearest shore, is the White Shoal Lighthouse, and it's about to start taking reservations. As of now, dates available for reservation at the lighthouse are Aug. 1, 20, 21, 26 and 27. There is a 13-mile boat trip from Big Stone Bay inside Wilderness State Park, which is 12 miles west of Mackinaw City. An overnight stay will give people approximately 24 hours at the lighthouse.