Largest Ice Cover over Great Lakes for this Century

On February 6 of 2014, it was found that ice was covering 78.7 percent of the Great Lakes. The last time the ice was this wide spread was in 1996. The last four winters the ice cover of the Great Lakes had only been 40 percent or less. However, ice coverage has been much worse in past years dating back to 1973. In 1979, the ice coverage for the Great Lakes was at 94.7 percent; in 1994, 90.7 percent.
For 2014 so far, just over 92 percent of Lake Superior is covered, just under 88 percent of Lake Huron is covered, almost 95 percent of Lake Erie is covered, around 53 percent of Lake Michigan is covered, and about 29 percent of Lake Ontario is covered. One advantage of this large ice coverage is that "caves near the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore are now open to foot traffic, thanks to sufficiently thick ice on Lake Superior." Meteorologists are keeping a close eye on the Lakes to see how close they reach to the record high ice coverage of 1979.

http://www.weather.com/news/weather-winter/great-lakes-ice-cover-largest-century-20140207