This kind of ice might make you feel hungry. There is a resemblance to our breakfast flapjacks that give this type of ice its name. At the same time, this pancake ice might also weird you out.
Pancake ice is a relatively rare formation, typically occurring only at the edges of lakes. It is incredibly difficult to achieve this ice formation for larger bodies of water, like oceans, or faster streams of water, like rivers. And this usually happens at the onset of ice on the lake.
With the consistently cold weather the last few days of 2025 and the first few days of 2026, as well as significant cold blasts throughout December, the temperature of Lake Erie has dipped close to the freezing mark. Ice has been forming right at the beach, as the land temperature is lower than the lake temperature because of the higher specific heat of water.
Quick science lesson: Specific heat is the amount of energy required to warm something (i.e., water, air) up by a degree. Water has a higher specific heat, so it takes more energy to warm it up or cool it down.
There are still raging waves because of the high wind and extreme temperature changes the Great Lakes region has seen over the last week-or-so. These waves break up the forming ice, and ice chunks collide frequently. These constant collisions help smooth out the edges, making them rounder and more of that pancake shape, as the ice pieces float on top of the waves and near-freezing water.
The water that is below the ice has small gaps between the "pancakes" of ice, and when the wind is strong, the water freezes as it reaches the surface, known as freezing spray. That tends to "rim" around the edge of the ice pancakes and adds to the unique shape and appearance of this rare ice.
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