Heavy rain makes lake even more Superior The historic rain that fell on the Duluth area Tuesday and Wednesday raised the level of Lake Superior 3 to 4 inches, said Jay Austin, associate professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth's Large Lakes Observatory.
Several inches does not seem like much, but at 350 miles long and 160 miles wide, Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake (in surface area) in the world. The rise amounts to about 2 trillion gallons of water.
"It's a prodigious amount of water," Austin said -- enough to fill Lake Mille Lacs and still have half a trillion gallons in reserve.
BILL MCAuliffe
