TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — Great Lakes water temperatures may have started their yearly decline ahead of schedule. George Leshkevich, a research scientist at the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, said each of the lakes is cooler than it was in late August last year.

“It seems like they’re cooling. The cooling usually starts in September,” he told the Traverse City Record-Eagle. “But, in just seeing the forecast for northern Michigan in the last week or so, night temperatures and frost risks will affect the water temperatures.”

Lake Michigan seems to have been the least impacted, being only about 1 degree lower than last year, from 72 degrees to only about 71. Lake Superior was about 66 degrees last year in late August and about 63 degrees this year.