Just One More Reason....

....that Ohio is a good place to be from.

The New York Times reports on the rising popularity of surfing in Cleveland (which they've oh so cleverly titled "Yes, You Can Surf in Cleveland, Before the Brown Water Freezes").

First off, you silly New Yorkers: it's been a very long time since the Cuyahoga River burned and Lake Erie is remarkably clean again, so that little brown water dig isn't appreciated by the Buckeye State. Most likely any brown water the reporter saw was the churning of the bottom silt by the big waves. Sheesh.

Anyway, we surf year-round in York and we often have snow on the beach. You might think "Maine. Ohio. Maine is way worse. You've got to be crazy to surf in Maine in the winter."

Nah. Despite the fact that our surfers sometimes have to wade through waste deep snow to get to the waves, our winter water is pretty temperate usually staying in the high 30's lower 40's. You have to be way crazier to surf in Ohio water that is about to freeze.

Our current water temperature is 47 degrees F (air is 42 degrees). Lake Erie's current temperature? Seven degrees colder.

Lake Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes and therefore has the greatest swing in water temperatures. The picture at left was taken at Long Sands Beach a couple of winters ago on a day where the temperature was 7 degrees and the wind chill was -21. Water temperature that day was a balmy 41 degrees. No one got blown backwards off their board, though.