PHOTO: “Seiche Events on Lake Erie” fact sheet cover.

Weathering Lake Erie Seiche Events and Shoreline Winter Preparedness

Learn How-To November 28 with NY Sea Grant Specialist and Retired National Weather Service: Buffalo Meteorologist 

Contact: 

Roy Widrig, Great Lakes Coastal Processes and Hazards Specialist, E: rlw294@cornell.edu, P: (315) 312-3042

Kara Lynn Dunn, NYSG's Freelance Great Lakes Publicist, E: karalynn@gisco.net, P: (315) 465-7578


Above is the recording from the November 28th webinar

Buffalo, NY, November 8, 2023 - The western shore of New York State from Buffalo to the Pennsylvania border is impacted by seiche (pronounced saysh) events – the result of wind blowing a sizeable standing wave across Lake Erie and onto the shoreline, causing flooding, rapid and intense erosion, deposition of sand and debris, potential hazardous conditions, such as rip currents, and risk to life. 

To help waterfront property owners and shoreline managers deal with this impact, New York Sea Grant (NYSG) will offer a free “Seiche and Winter Weather Shoreline Preparedness” webinar on November 28, 2023, from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Register online at bit.ly/ShorelinePreparedness112. 

Funding for this webinar is provided by the New York State Environmental Protection Fund under the Authority of the New York Ocean and Great Lakes Ecosystem Conservation Act, through cooperative agreement with NYSDEC’s Great Lakes Program.


A wave during a seiche strikes the Lake Erie shoreline at Buffalo, NY. Credit: NYSDEC

The “Seiche and Winter Weather Shoreline Preparedness” webinar will be led by NYSG Great Lakes Coastal Processes and Hazards Specialist Roy Widrig and retired National Weather Service: Buffalo Meteorologist Judy Levan. They will cover what makes western New York prone to Lake Erie seiche events, the weather that causes them, their influence on the eastern Lake Erie shoreline, and best practices for making public and privately-owned shoreline properties more resilient to seiche events.

Widrig, author of NYSG’s Seiche Events on Lake Erie Fact Sheet, notes that low-lying areas along the shoreline from Hamburg to Van Buren Point near Fredonia are particularly vulnerable to seiche impact. 

Property owners and managers of shoreline areas along New York’s Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River shoreline may request Widrig’s assistance virtually and in-person with evaluating a waterfront area for erosion problems. NYSG provides a Virtual Site Visit Portal at www.nyseagrant.org/glcoastalvirtualsitevisit. 

The “Seiche and Winter Weather Shoreline Preparedness” Webinar and site erosion evaluation assistance are offered as free educational services of NYSG.


More Info: New York Sea Grant

New York Sea Grant (NYSG), a cooperative program of Cornell University and the State University of New York (SUNY), is one of 34 university-based programs under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Sea Grant College Program.

Since 1971, NYSG has represented a statewide network of integrated research, education and extension services promoting coastal community economic vitality, environmental sustainability and citizen awareness and understanding about the State’s marine and Great Lakes resources.

Through NYSG’s efforts, the combined talents of university scientists and extension specialists help develop and transfer science-based information to many coastal user groups—businesses and industries, federal, state and local government decision-makers and agency managers, educators, the media and the interested public.

The program maintains Great Lakes offices at Cornell University, SUNY Buffalo, SUNY Oswego and the Wayne County Cooperative Extension office in Newark. In the State's marine waters, NYSG has offices at Stony Brook University and with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Nassau County on Long Island, Brooklyn College and Cornell Cooperative Extension in NYC and Kingston in the Hudson Valley.

For updates on Sea Grant activities: www.nyseagrant.org has RSS, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube links. NYSG offers a free e-list sign up via www.nyseagrant.org/nycoastlines for its flagship publication, NY Coastlines/Currents, which is published quarterly.