More than 18 percent of the world's fresh water exists in a watershed that begins in northeastern Minnesota, sweeps eastward past New York's northern border, and far up into Ontario. This is the Great Lakes watershed, which links us to seven other states as well as Canada -- massive freshwater repositories that may not factor much into the daily thoughts of downstaters, although they have a huge impact on the ecology and economy of a lot of upstate New York. And on the weather -- that 10-feet-plus of snow that's fallen on Oswego County in the past week is a "lake-effect storm," caused by subzero winds blowing steadily from the west over Lake Ontario, where they pick up heat and moisture [source].

There's a new community resource for learning and sharing information about the Great Lakes: the Great Lakes Wiki, started up last fall by journalism students at Michigan State University, and given an official launch a couple weeks ago. The founders want the wiki to be a community-created resource for "collectively telling the Great Lakes story" from diverse angles: environment, culture, recreation, challenges.

The wiki already has a lot of information -- like details on the 43 Areas of Concern, geographic regions along the lakes that have been identified as causing particular harm to aquatic life. Still, there are plenty of Web 2.0-style collective intelligence needs to fill on this wiki, which currently has an entry on pop singer Gordon Lightfoot (that includes song lyrics), but lacks one on Beluga whales. So if you've got data to add, stories to tell, or photographs of the Great Lakes and what's around them that you'd like to share with the world, go on over there and get to work!

Image: Detail of satellite image of lake-effect snow bands east of Lake Ontario on Feb. 9, Operational Significant Event Imagery - NOAA/NASA.