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An article written for ABC News 5 Cleveland explained what happened on 11-26-25 on Lake Erie:<\/p>\n
Seiche\u2026 Pronounced SAY-sh. Now that we\u2019re all on the same page\u2026 Let\u2019s figuratively dive in!<\/p>\n
Lake Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes. . . . water levels can change QUICKLY\u2026 It\u2019s called a seiche.<\/p>\n
\nIt\u2019s created by strong winds blowing over Lake Erie. Think of the lake as a bathtub. The wind blowing over the lake will push water in the same direction. West winds pile water up against the eastern basin. That water has to come from somewhere\u2026 that\u2019s right\u2026 the western basin.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\nWe saw that this morning (we\u2019re still seeing it, just not to the same degree) as winds gusted over 40mph. Lake Erie\u2019s water level dropped near Toledo OVER 4 FEET! On the other end of the lake, Buffalo, the water level was over 4\u2032 higher than normal. . . .<\/p>\n
You can walk to places you normally can\u2019t, but always know the latest forecast and don\u2019t get caught out when the water starts to return! (Trent Magill, \u201cSay whaaat? Seiche!\u201d<\/a>, 11-27-25)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
On 26 November 2025 at about 4:30 PM ET, my wife and I saw with our own eyes, extraordinary extended dry lake bottom (see photos on an accompanying Facebook page<\/a>) on the shore of Lake Erie, just north of Monroe, Michigan (about 40 miles from our house), for quite a ways out. According to Wikipedia, \u201cLake Erie\u201d<\/a>: \u201cThe shallowest section of Lake Erie is the\u00a0western basin<\/a> where depths average only 25 to 30 feet . . .\u201d<\/p>\n
I actually cited this phenomenon, which is not all that infrequent, as an argument from analogy for a possible<\/em> natural explanation for the parting of the Red Sea, in my book, The Word Set in Stone: How Archaeology, Science, and History Back Up the Bible<\/em><\/a> (Catholic Answers Press: March 2023), on pages 113-114:<\/p>\n
[Carl] Drews . . . stated,<\/p>\n
On December 1\u20132, 2006 and January 30\u201331, 2008 there were strong windstorms over the Great Lakes that caused extreme surge events on Lake Erie. In both cases the wind came from the west, producing displacements between the water levels at the western and eastern ends of the lake of 4.2 m [13.8 feet] in 2006 and 5.1 m [16.7 feet] in 2008.<\/p>\n
This is noteworthy because Lake Erie, one of the Great Lakes (about 30 miles from my home in Michigan) is a shallow body of water, as far as lakes go, with an average depth of 62 feet. Thus, the differential in water level between western and eastern ends of the lake (it\u2019s about 241 miles long) amounted to 22 percent of the average depth in the 2006 storm and 27 percent in 2008.<\/p>\n
To provide a mental image of what this means, I have a small pool in my backyard that is 4 feet deep and 15 feet in diameter. The equivalent difference in water level, compared\u00a0 to these storms on Lake Erie, would be a difference of depth of 10.6 inches higher on one side of the pool compared to the other (analogy to the 2006 storm), or 13 inches (analogy to 2008). We can readily observe, then, that such wind events could cause dry land to appear in shallower bodies of water, especially if the winds are significantly stronger.<\/p>\n
Footnote 140: Carl Drews, \u201cUsing Wind Setdown and Storm Surge on Lake Erie to Calibrate the Air-Sea Drag Coefficient,\u201d<\/a> Plos One<\/em> 8(8) (August 19, 2013).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n
The seiche or wind setdown event on Lake Erie yesterday (a four foot drop in the western basin) was significantly smaller than earlier ones in 2006 and 2008, per the above. It was an eight-foot differential between the western and eastern part of the lake, which is 58% as much as the 2006 event and 48% as much as 2008. In other words, on the western part of the lake in 2006, the drop in water depth in the western part of the lake was 6.9 feet, and in 2008 it was 8.35 feet, deep enough \u2014 by the way \u2014 for men to drown in if they can\u2019t swim. Drops in water levels on the Great Lakes can sometimes occur very rapidly.<\/p>\n
Here is the biblical account:<\/p>\n
Exodus 14:15-16, 21-22, 26-28<\/strong>\u00a0 (RSV) The LORD said to Moses, \u201cWhy do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward. [16] Lift up your rod, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the people of Israel may go on dry ground through the sea. . . . [21]\u00a0Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD drove the sea back by a strong east wind<\/em> all night<\/em>, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.\u00a0[22] And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. . . . [26]\u00a0Then the LORD said to Moses, \u201cStretch out your hand over the sea, that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen.\u201d\u00a0[27] So Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its wonted flow when the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled into it, and the LORD routed the Egyptians in the midst of the sea. [28] The waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen and all the host of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea; not so much as one of them remained.<\/p>\n
Exodus 15:8, 10, 12<\/strong> At the blast of thy nostrils the waters piled up, the floods stood up in a heap; . . . [10] Thou didst blow with thy wind<\/em>, the sea covered them; they sank as lead in the mighty waters. . . . [12] Thou didst stretch out thy right hand, the earth swallowed them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n
Note how a natural phenomena, \u201ca strong east wind all night\u201d is mentioned in 14:21 and \u201cthy wind\u201d again in 15:10. Wind is also mentioned in the plague of the locusts:<\/p>\n
Exodus 10:13, 19<\/strong> So Moses stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt, and the LORD brought an east wind<\/em> upon the land all that day and all that night; and when it was morning the east wind had brought the locusts. . . . [19] And the LORD turned a very strong west wind<\/em>, which lifted the locusts and drove them into the Red Sea; not a single locust was left in all the country of Egypt.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
God is sovereign over the weather and the natural laws that He created (as the Bible states many times). One could argue that here, God may have acted through a natural event that He knew would take place at exactly the right time, to save the Hebrews (water level dropping) and drown the Egyptians (when the water returned to normal). It may also have been miraculous. Either way, it\u2019s God\u2019s doing and His will that was fulfilled, and He used a human being, Moses, to participate in it, as His representative, as He also often \u2014 perhaps even usually<\/em> \u2014 does.<\/p>\n
Those who have studied these passages closely, and know both the Bible and science, believe that it was not literally the Red Sea that we know today, involved in this incident. But that\u2019s a long discussion. My present task is to prove that events not unlike what the Bible describes are quite possible: dry land can appear where there was, before, four, six, or even eight or more feet of water, in a large lake or a sea.<\/p>\n
A \u201cstrong wind all night\u201d (Ex 14:21) is exactly what happened in Lake Erie last night (a west wind in this case; i.e., one that blows from the west to the east). Sometimes also, east winds can blow the water over to the west end of the lake, just as the Bible refers to an \u201ceast wind\u201d and a \u201cwest wind\u201d in Egypt (Ex 10:13, 19 above). So, for example, I found the following pair of comments in an \u201cOhio Game Fishing\u201d forum<\/a>, from September 11, 2005:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
I was fishing out of Lorain [a little west of Cleveland] yesterday . . . and the waves picked up . . . and there [were] white caps. I just don\u2019t understand why . . .<\/p>\n
I was out yesterday also and less than 2\u2032 went 2\u2032 to 4\u2032. The wind was out of the East, which means bad news for Lorain and West.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nIn this present incident on Lake Erie, there was a gale force wind of up to 50 mph, which is part of the \u201cgales of November\u201d<\/a> (also known as \u201cthe witch of November\u201d) that sunk the SS Edmund Fitzgerald<\/a> on Lake Superior on November 10, 1975: almost exactly fifty years ago, as I write.\u00a0I have visited the spot right (Whitefish Point<\/a>) near where it happened, and the museum<\/a> there. It\u2019s Michigan folklore. Most people have heard the famous song<\/a> about it by the late Canadian singer Gordon Lightfoot (I\u2019m even half-Canadian!). The waves on that fateful night were 35 feet high. Last night in the middle of Lake Erie they were 20 feet high. Gale force winds<\/a> are considered to be between 39-54 mph.<\/p>\n
In my book I cited the scientist Carl Drews, who, in a 2010 article, cited by New Scientist<\/em>, The Atlantic<\/em>, The Guardian<\/em>, Smithsonian Magazin<\/em>e, NPR, and many other news outlets or scientific journals, speculated on the event recorded in the Bible, known as the \u201cparting of the Red Sea.\u201d His theory suggested a crossing in the freshwater lakes and marshes not far south of the Mediterranean Sea. But he was not the first to approach the broad topic from a scientific perspective. Oceanographer Doron Nof and meteorologist Nathan Poldor, among others, whom they cite, wrote an article on 1 March 1992, entitled, \u201cAre There Oceanographic Explanations for the Israelites\u2019 Crossing of the Red Sea?\u201d<\/a> (Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society<\/em>, Vol. 73, issue 3, pp. 305-314).<\/p>\n
It\u2019s probable that the Gulf of Suez<\/a>, a narrower body of water to the northwest off of the Red Sea (varying in width from 12 to 20 miles) was also known as \u201cthe Red Sea\u201d in ancient times. Nof and Poldor believe that its northern end may have been where the biblical crossing took place. The Sinai Peninsula lies across it to the east. They explain their reasons for why they believe that the conditions in this area of the Gulf of Suez could plausibly correspond to the biblical account:<\/p>\n
Qualitative<\/span> descriptions<\/span> of<\/span> the <\/span>water behavior in the northern edge <\/span>of the gulf is given in Har-el (1983).<\/span> These<\/span> descriptions<\/span> suggest<\/span> that <\/span>when strong winds blow from the southeast, the wa<\/span>ters of the Gulf<\/span> of<\/span> Suez<\/span> spread some<\/span> 8 to 9 km [5 to 5 1\/2 miles] <\/span>northward along the Suez Canal. Har-el suggests that <\/span>this happens every 20 years or so and is typically <\/span>associated with a sea level rise of almost 2 m [6 1\/2 feet]. In <\/span>contrast, when a strong wind blows from the north<\/span>west, the low tide is exaggerated. There are also <\/span>reports that<\/span> Napoleon was almost<\/span> killed (during a <\/span>crossing at a shallow region) as a result of a \u201csudden <\/span>high tide.\u201d The Suez Canal company states that the <\/span>usual difference between high and low water is 80 cm <\/span>and that the maximal difference is more than 3 m [9.8 feet]. A <\/span>scientific analysis of the sea level fluctuations for the <\/span>period 1956-1966 was made by Sharaf El Din (1975). <\/span>He speaks of tides, varying atmospheric<\/span> pressure, <\/span>and sea level variations of up to 140 cm [4.6 feet], but it is not <\/span>clear what are the direct causes of those variations. . . .\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
[O]ur approach in this study is to relate <\/span>the Red Sea crossing to natural oceanographic phe<\/span>nomena. We shall show that a relatively simple oceano<\/span>graphic process related to a northwesterly wind push<\/span>ing the water offshore and the water returning as a fast <\/span>high-amplitude<\/span> nonlinear wave<\/span> (once the wind<\/span> re<\/span>laxes) can explain the \u201cparting of the sea.\u201d The Gulf of <\/span>Suez<\/span> provides<\/span> an<\/span> ideal body of water for such a <\/span>process<\/span> because<\/span> of<\/span> its<\/span> unique<\/span> geography;<\/span> as <\/span>stated earlier, it is rather long, narrow, and shallow.\u00a0<\/span>(p. 307; my bracketed comments)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It is <\/span>expected<\/span> that,<\/span> in<\/span> most<\/span> cases,<\/span> the<\/span> wind will<\/span> relax <\/span>gradually (over a period of, say, a day), allowing the <\/span>water to gradually return to its prewind position. Obvi<\/span>ously, such a return would not impose any danger to <\/span>humans because one could easily escape its arrival. A <\/span>sudden (i.e., within several minutes) relaxation of the <\/span>wind or a sudden change in its direction would, how<\/span>ever, cause a severe response. Under such conditions, a rapidly advancing nonlinear gravity wave will cover the exposed area within minutes, preventing any possible escape. After discussing these points in some detail, it will be argued that our proposed wind crossing mechanism has much in common with the original biblical description because it involves pre-event winds, receding water, and a rapidly returning wave. (pp. 307-308)<\/span><\/p>\n
[H]urricane winds . . . <\/span>would give a rather high <\/span>sea<\/span> level<\/span> drop<\/span> of<\/span> about<\/span> 5.8<\/span> m<\/span> [19 feet] and<\/span> a<\/span> (corrected) <\/span>receding distance of about 3 km [1.9 miles], whereas a wind . . . <\/span>corresponding to a strong storm [winds about 57% as strong] . . . would give <\/span>a sea level drop of about 2.5 m [8.2 feet] and a (corrected) <\/span>receding distance of about 1.2 km [3\/4 mile]. (p. 311)<\/span><\/p>\n
[Calculations suggest] a Gulf of Suez setdown time of <\/span>about ten hours for moderate winds and several hours <\/span>for strong winds. This is in agreement with the biblical <\/span>description of a wind blowing the entire night prior to <\/span>the crossing. (p. 311, my bracketed comment]<\/span><\/p>\n
[I]f <\/span>the wind relaxes or changes its direction abruptly (say, <\/span>within several minutes) then the water returns as a fast <\/span>nonlinear gravity wave or a \u201cbore.\u201d Namely, since the <\/span>water behind the front of the nonlinear wave has larger <\/span>depth than the water ahead, the back travels faster <\/span>than the front and the wave ultimately breaks (e.g., <\/span>Stoker 1957; Lighthill 1978). . . . for a wind setdown . . . corresponding to a storm, the entire receding area would be flooded in just 4 min[utes]. (p. 312)<\/span><\/p>\n
Furthermore, if, due to natural <\/span>geological processes, the bot<\/span>tom topography in biblical times<\/span> were slightly different than it is <\/span>today and contained a ridge . . . then <\/span>crossing in \u201cthe midst of the sea\u201d with<\/span> water on both <\/span>sides<\/span> is certainly possible. In this context, it is appro<\/span>priate to point out that sea level variations on the order <\/span>of meters also occur from time to time in some of the <\/span>Great Lakes. For instance, Lake Erie, which, similar to <\/span>the Gulf<\/span> of Suez, is long and narrow,<\/span> is<\/span> regularly <\/span>subject to fluctuations<\/span> of about<\/span> 1 m during winter <\/span>storms (see, e.g., Csanady 1982). (p. 313)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The average depth of the Suez Canal is 130 feet (shallowest at its northern end), with a maximum depth of 230 feet, and it\u2019s 190 miles long. The average depth of Lake Erie is 63 feet (25-30 in its western basin), with a maximum depth of 210 feet, and it\u2019s 241 miles long.<\/p>\n
[I]t is not clear whether such events <\/span>are likely to happen every 50,<\/span> 100, or 500 years. <\/span>However, it seems that an occurrence of such events <\/span>is certainly possible. Moreover, it should be stressed <\/span>that a rapidly changing wind is not required in the case <\/span>of a long ridge . . . Specifically, <\/span>if the ridge is long, so that crossing the sea by walking <\/span>on the exposed bottom would take, say, 10 hours, then <\/span>even gradually returning waters could cause drown<\/span>ing. (p. 313)<\/span><\/p>\n
Believers can find the presence <\/span>and existence of God in the creation of the wind with <\/span>its particular<\/span> properties just<\/span> as they<\/span> find<\/span> it<\/span> in the <\/span>establishment of a miracle. Some may even find our <\/span>proposed mechanism to be a supportive argument for <\/span>the original biblical description of this event. (p. 313)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
See the photos we took yesterday, on my Facebook page<\/a>. Since the water dropped by four feet, the area near the shore that is usually less than four feet deep was dry, and that\u2019s what we saw.<\/p>\n
This is section 164 \u2014 in Part IV \u2014 of my free book (posted on my blog), The Word Set in Stone: \u201cVolume Two\u201d<\/em>:\u00a0More Evidence of Archaeology, Science, and History Backing Up the Bible<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n
*****<\/p>\n