ERIE COUNTY, OH -- The water levels at Lake Erie sit eight to 12 inches above average, and the state's Department of Natural Resources tells Spectrum News 1 Ohio that they expect that number to increase as we head into June.
 
Meanwhile, business is heating up for Miller Boatline. During peak season, they'll make 30 ferry trips each day from Catawba Island to Put-In-Bay and Middle Bass Island.

 

 

Matt Parker is the Dock Master.

 "In a drastic year we'll lose five or six days to wind events. That strong northeast or southwest wind. We've already lost five days this year. It's a lot."

The high winds blow the water back and forth. And as if it were crashing in a bowl. Eventually the water spills over and onto the dock.

At Great Lakes Popcorn Company, sandbags stopped the water from coming through, but Store Manager Loria Hofer said there are days where they've been forced to open late.
 
"What we've seen on a daily basis it that the water levels that we have today are actually exceeding the record high levels for those days in 1995 or 1986," Scudder Mackey Ph.D. said.

Mackey is the Chief of the Office of Coastal Management for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
 
He said the reason is a combination of record rainfall and historic snowfall throughout the country's Upper Peninsula.

"All of that snow melts and it's gone into Lake Superior, down through Lake Michigan, here on into Lake Erie and then over Niagra Falls into Lake Ontairo," he said.

Both Great Lakes Popcorn and Miller Boatline said the water levels are an incovenience, but they know things could be worse.