In coastal Southern California, a land bestowed with the type of weather even Goldilocks herself would approve of – never too hot, never too cold – the townspeople still find ways to complain. “It’s gross outside,” is something you may hear a tan blonde sheila utter strolling Abbot Kinney with a lemonade on a cloudy, 64-degree day.
Sometimes, a little perspective is in order.
Whereas surfing in SoCal never requires more than 4 millimeters of neoprene, and maybe a pair of booties, our friends back east, around the Great Lakes, and in Europe can often be heard scoffing at what Southern Californians deem “cold.” In some cases, it gets so cold elsewhere that the water does strange things in spite of being in constant motion.
Remember back in 2015 when the ocean half-froze on the island of Nantucket creating slushy waves? Yeah, people surfed ’em to just to say they did.
Well, this year Lake Michigan told the Atlantic to hold its beer and is currently churning out balls of ice – a phenomenon that’s pretty crazy to observe.
Apparently, this happens often during winter months. The ice balls typically form from chunks of ice that break off of large sheets of ice on the lake, or from recently fallen snow.
So far, no videos have surfaced of anyone trying to surf through Lake Michigan’s balls, but it might not be long.
