(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — If you walk along the Lake Michigan shoreline at this time of year, you might spot an unusual feature: ice volcanoes.
National Weather Service Meteorologist Brett Borchardt said ice volcanoes form when winds pile ice up along the shore and waves continue under the ice.
“There’s a lot of cracks and crevices through the ice, and whenever you have waves on Lake Michigan they sneak through these cracks and crevices, and they find the holes and they shoot upwards,” he said Thursday. “And when the water comes down and freezes back on the ice you develop these cylindrical cones. And with time they develop into these volcanoes.”
Borchardt stressed that it's dangerous to walk out onto the ice to look at ice volcanoes.
The ice around them can be thinner than it looks, and people can fall through the ice and into the frigid water, he said.
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