Vanishing ice and snow: record warm winter wreaks havoc across US midwest

In January, 20 people were rescued here, outside Port Clinton, Ohio, after the ice they were standing on cracked and broke away from the shore. Photograph: Stephen Starr

As a child in the 1990s, Joseph Kuzma remembers how he and his father would – around this time of year – drive their truck out on to Lake Erie and set up a mini camp right on the ice.

“We’d stay out there all weekend in an ice shanty. Catch fish, cook it and sleep in bunks on the ice,” he said. He also recalled sitting next to his brother when he drove a dump truck from the nearby island of Put-In-Bay to the mainland atop the lake ice, remarking: “We would have 6in to 8in of ice.”