Here's the near shore forecast for the east side of Lake Michigan today if anyone here on the forums is on this side of the big pond.

New Buffalo To Manistee:
GALE WARNING IN EFFECT

Today
West gales to 35 knots. Cloudy. Areas of drizzle in the morning.
Waves 6 to 10 feet.

Tonight
West winds to 30 knots becoming northwest. Scattered snow showers in the evening becoming numerous overnight.
Waves 6 to 9 feet.

Saturday
Northwest gales to 35 knots. Snow showers.
Waves 11 to 15 feet!!!

Saturday Night
Northwest winds to 30 knots becoming west 15 to 25 knots. Snow showers.
Waves 9 to 13 feet!!!

Gary

We all know where to find Gary this weekend....and it ain't the mall. :p

Get out there for the great pictures Gary, but try to stay dry! HA!

Bert

I am hoping to make it to Grand Haven late Saturday and then again on Sunday as they are expecting more big waves. Pay day is Saturday though as the weather looks prime for a good lighthouse dunking.
JB

Thanks for the tip, Gary but I beat you to it. Went to St. Joe in the early afternoon and Grand Haven in the evening, I think I got some great shots at GH. Towards 4:30 or so the clouds parted and I had some really good light to work with. the sand was blowing pretty bad so I stayed off of the beach for much of the time, but I think I got some good ones hand held playing with the dunes in the composition. Also had some surfers there, and I remembered seeing some of your shots with them so I got a couple of my own. If I didn't have to work Sat and Sun I'd be right back out there again.
I can't wait to get the prints back!!! Hopefully I'll be able to post them on here by monday or tuesday. A tip - Wear your long johns and a hay with ear flaps.... Mighty chilly out there.

I don't know what you got yesterday at St Joe's, Mike, but this afternoono was mind blowing!!!! There were 10-16 foot waves called for in the marine forecast and MOTHER NATURE DELIVERED!!!! At times, the backwash from a big wave sweeping back out would encounter another big one coming in and you'd have a towering wave for a short time that looked like it was up in the 20-25 foot range before the two went their separate way. I was regularly seeing walls of water anywhere from 3-6 feet deep going straight across the north pier at St Joe's. It was truly spectacular!!!

I shot 4 rolls of slides, about 1 1/2 rolls at South Haven and the balance down at St. Joe's. It will be interesting to see what I get back from processing on Monday. Stay tuned....

Gary

By the way, here's the current marine near shore forecast for St Joe's to South Haven if anyone is interested.

TONIGHT
NORTHWEST GALES TO 40 KNOTS THIS EVENING...DIMINISHING TO NORTHWEST WINDS 15 TO 25 KNOTS EARLY TONIGHT THEN BECOMING WEST TOWARD MORNING. OCCASIONAL SNOW SHOWERS IN THE EVENING FOLLOWED BY SCATTERED SNOW SHOWERS OVERNIGHT. WAVES 12 TO 16 FEET SUBSIDING TO 4 TO 7 FEET LATE.

SUNDAY
WEST WINDS 15 TO 25 KNOTS BECOMING SOUTHWEST TO 30 KNOTS DURING THE AFTERNOON. OCCASIONAL SNOW SHOWERS. WAVES 4 TO 7 FEET BUILDING TO 6 TO 10 FEET IN THE AFTERNOON.

SUNDAY NIGHT
WEST WINDS TO 30 KNOTS BECOMING NORTHWEST 15 TO 25
KNOTS DURING THE LATE EVENING...THEN NORTH 10 TO 20 KNOTS TOWARD MORNING. OCCASIONAL SNOW SHOWERS. WAVES 6 TO 10 FEET SUBSIDING TO 4 TO 7 FEET LATE.

MONDAY
NORTHEAST WINDS 10 TO 20 KNOTS. SCATTERED SNOW FLURRIES IN THE MORNING. WAVES 4 TO 7 FEET SUBSIDING TO 2 TO 4 FEET.

Gary

I hit Grand Haven today about 4pm and absolutely could not believe the weather. From the beach, the wind was absolutely wicked. The closer I moved towards the lake, the harder the snow became until right next to the lake it was horizontal hail. With the wind, and the ice forming on my UV filter, I have no confidence that any of my shots were worth keeping. Can't wait to see what you guys ended up with.
JB

I'm glad you were able to get out, Gary, wish I could have joined you. But instead I got to listen to people blame each other and the weather for their crashing into every blasted thing on or near a roadway. I'd say you had the better day.

Mike, I shot 4 rolls. I'll know what I got tomorrow a little after lunch. Looks like the Michigan state guys were busy as all get out yesterday on I-94. The interstate around St Joe wasn't bad at all. About 5 miles west of PawPaw the road turned nasty! There were about 8 cars in the ditch between there an exit 72 where I get off in Kzoo. Busy night!

Like that horizontal hail, John? Tough stuff! We were getting some of that at South Haven and St Joe yesterday. St Joe was definitely the strongly preferred choice of where to shoot given the wind direction!

Well, it will be intersting to see what each of us got when we get the slides back early next week.

Maybe over Christmas the 3 of us can get together to shoot out at the lake at least once!

Gary

In this nasty weather, what kinds of protection do you guys have for the expen$ive camera gear?

John, you may find this hard to believe, but in my case, NONE! I was out yesterday with both F5's in hand, a 300 mm f4 AF-S lens on the one and an 80-200 f2.8 AF-S lens on the other. All together, someing approaching about $7K in camera bodies with those lenses on them. I carry a camera insurance policy that covers them for professional use and total loss replacement. It isn't cheap insurance when they're covered for professional use, but it's a whole lot cheaper than replacing one of them out of my own pocket if a wave gets one of them! For that reason, I probably worry about them a little less than I'm sure I otherwise would. In other words, cheap peace of mind! When I know that the cameras and photographer are going to get drenched, i.e. out on the pier where the blowing spray soaks everything, I put the camera in a 2 gallon zip lock back. I cut a slit in the bottom for the lens barrel to go through and tape or rubber band the bag down tightly on the lens barrel. The back of the bag you have to leave open to get access to the camera controls, but other than that... Yesterday, the north facing side of me, the camera body and lens were covered with ice by the time I finished around 5 PM at St Joe's courtesy of the horizontal sleet or whatever it was that I was being pelted with!

If any out there are inclined to brave (read be stupid enough) the bitter cold along the Great Lakes to photograph the lights, I can't urge you strongly enough to buy lithium photo batteries for your adventure. They put out current at a constant rate at temperatures down to -40F until they die. Alkalines and rechargeable NiMH batteries, in comparison, put out progressively less current as it gets colder. Nothing would be more frustrating to me than to hit the button and have nothing happen because the batteries have said uncle!

Gary

It was cold, but not as cold as I have experienced. The wind though when shooting at 300mm, I know little to nothing turned out. I shot 2 rolls total, one on the Grand Haven side, 1 on the ferrysburg side. I am actually more interested to see how my shots with an old minolta point and shoot turned out of some alternative subjects (Ice covered beach grasses).

In terms of insurance, I have about $500.00 into camera body and lenses, so I am willing to forgo insurance on my gear. That type of weather is the greatest extreme that I will bring my camera into although I do shoot winter shots often enough. I do use a lens hood for nasty weather, but it was pretty useless yesterday.

In terms of batteries, I now keep an extra set on me for winter shots. It's a drag when you shoot and nothing happens. In the cold, the batteries will sap quickly. So I will replace them and warm up the cold batteries in my pocket. You can continue to alternate them for a long time.

John, such a lack of confidence!

I don't know what you were shooting for film, but shooting Fuji Provia 400F slide film I was getting a shutter speed of 1/800th of a second at an aperature of f5.6 - 6.3 in shutter priority mode and am reasonably confident that I got some good shots.

As for the cold, yesterday really wasn't all that bad even with the wind. From the NWS wind chill chart, the effective temp with the wind chill should have been in the range of about -3 to -5F, which isn't really all that bad. Shooting at South Haven between Christmas and New Year 2000, the air temp was a balmy -28F with winds in the 20-30 mph range which translates to a wind chill of -55! THAT'S COLD!

Gary

Yea, but I think it's warranted. You know that feeling in your stomach before you take a tough test that you didn't study for. Well, you take it, you try your hardest, but know that you may not get the outcome you wanted. That's how I feel about these. It was blowing snow so hard that at times you couldn't make out the light even standing right next to the water on the beach. The wind was so ridiculously strong that I know my tripod was likely shaking. And I have no clue whether anything was in focus. Everytime I looked through the lens, my eyes would start to water from that wind. The first roll was 100, the second roll was 400. It wasn't more than a couple shots in that I had to start to wipe melting snow off the lens and no more than 4 shots in where it started to freeze on the lens. If I come away with good shots, I will be surprised. This is one time I wish I had a video camera. Seeing it live was incredible.

Gary, I'd love to go out with the two of you guys, name the time & place and I'll hope I'm not working. I'm always up for that.
JWB, I hope you got something t turn out, it would be too bad to go out there and suffer through that and get nothing. Lord knows I've done it....

Don't know if anyone else watches the marine forecast, but Lake Michigan tomorrow morning is expecting 8-11 footers again. It will die down to 3-6 footers by afternoon. I am tied up in the morning and will not make it out but wanted to let others know about it.
JB