Great Lakes passenger steamers Lakes) and a high-speed catamaran running between Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Muskegon, Michigan. An international ferry ran on Lake Ontario from Rochester, New York to Toronto from 2004 to 2005, but it was plagued with high operating costs and low demand. The privately owned company was taken over by the City of Rochester, and the ship was sold overseas where it operated across the Strait of Gibraltar. Cruise ship traffic on the Great Lakes increased in the early-21st century, with ships like the MS Hamburg, the MS Saint Laurent and the smaller ships of the Great Lakes Cruise Company offering multi-day
Great Lakes on Lake Ontario's northeast shore. Related to the lake effect is the regular occurrence of fog over medium-sized areas, particularly along the shorelines of the lakes. This is most noticeable along Lake Superior's shores. The Great Lakes have been observed to help intensify storms, such as Hurricane Hazel in 1954, and the 2011 Goderich, Ontario tornado, which moved onshore as a tornadic waterspout. In 1996 a rare tropical or subtropical storm was observed forming in Lake Huron, dubbed the 1996 Lake Huron cyclone. Rather large severe thunderstorms covering wide areas are well known in the Great Lakes during mid-summer; these