A handful of lakes in the southern part of Minnesota report open water between April 8 and April 14. Ice conditions can change rapidly and should be checked frequently. I always hope for a mid-winter thaw to portend early ice-out. How thick the ice is. I wanted a tool to measure the thawing potential that weather exerts on lakes in spring so my friends, colleagues, and family could better plan for spring activities. Dead fish observed while on the lake, live fish caught in the trap nets, and dissolved oxygen (DO) readings during the winter are all summarized and used to assess the extent of winterkill at the lake. According to preliminary data kept by DNR Fisheries, live bait harvest in Minnesota, including leeches, declined at least 25 % from 2017 through 2021. Many of these lakes are running about 10 days later than the median ice-out date. The one good thing this winter, Downing noted, is that ice thickness on many Minnesota lakes is generally less than usual, which should make the thaw happen quicker once it starts. Outdoors | So, if you could monitor or predict cumulative TDDs in the springtime, you could make an educated guess at when lakes would lose their ice and, when you might be able to put your boat, dock, boatlift, and other lakey stuff in the water. As ice melts, it turns into what are called candles, long, vertical ice crystals. ), Garden Lake (East of Ely) May 6. Safety: Your safety isyour responsibility. Most of the big lakes are still hanging on to a weakening sheet of ice. Overall, Big Wolf Lake likely experienced a moderate winterkill. On 4/22/14, the trap nets caught a total of 1 bowfin, 1 yellow perch, 1 channel catfish, 3 bluegills, 21 northern pike, 32 largemouth bass, 36 white suckers, 44 black crappies, 57 bigmouth buffalo, 100+ common carp, and 100+ black bullheads. Trap nets were set on 4/23/14 and a count of dead fish along the shoreline revealed hundreds of bluegills and some walleyes, black crappies, common carp, largemouth bass, and black bullheads. Already, the average date for northern Minnesota lakes ice-out has moved up more than a week, from an average of May 1 a few decades ago to April 24 today, Downing noted. The deadline for anglers in roughly the southern two-thirds of the state to remove fish houses from lakes was March 7. Here are some select lake ice-out reports from this week from the Minnesota DNR. Low DO readings were recorded at Long Lake on 1/8/14 and 2/3/14 and the lake was opened to liberalized fishing from 2/12/14 to 2/23/14. No reports of dead fish were collected after ice-out. So I made a fun widget called the Minnesota Lake Ice-In and Ice-Out Widget to help track thawing in spring. MORR is FREE and web-based. For every positive number, those are thawing-degree days. White Iron lake east of Ely reports an ice-out date of May 10. No reports of dead fish were collected after ice-out. Boating season in Minnesota is off to an early start this year. The gap was closed a bit due to some very warm conditions at the end of April and the . And many lakes are recording ice-out dates that are two to three weeks earlier than average. http . An expert on Minnesota lakes is predicting that despite a slightly warmer-than-average winter in the northern part of the state, ice-out in the Northland this year will be later than average. MinnPost | P.O. That depends. Degree days for a single (24-hour) day are calculated using the following formulas: Duluth campus offices More boating and swimming (brrr). Thats 19 days earlier than the median date of April 29. Disclaimer: This widget does NOT predict when ice is safe for you! Overall, Star Lake likely experienced a moderate winterkill. Ice-out dates in the Grand Marais area will probably be fairly late in 2022, and few lakes will have warmed much by opening day. The stream trout "keep season" opens Saturday in Minnesota and Schmitt says this is a big deal in southeastern Minnesota. This graph shows that in Minnesota warming can start over the span of about two months, depending on the weather. Or, it may be when it is possible to navigate from point A to point B. Lake Pepin, a Southeastern Minnesota lake thats part of the Mississippi River, has iced out as early as Feb. 29 (2000), and as late as May 20 (1843) according to recorded observations. And thats why Downing is predicting a later-than-normal ice-out for the Northland. But we are still working out the bugs, Downing noted. He says his son, Andrew has been taking pictures of ducks in the area. Were not making a lot of headway, Boulay said. The DNR does not measure ice thickness on Minnesota lakes. McNeal Hall Many of these lakes are running about 10 days later than the median ice-out date. A large group of people came out to Northfield, Minn., on Saturday, April 15, 2023, for Gov. Schmitt estimates the ice will be gone within the next 10 days to 2 weeks. I bet youve thought about this. No dead walleyes or other gamefish were observed at that time. He says he was out ice fishing Tuesday locally and can't remember another time where a person could drive a 4-wheeler on . You could pick a handful of lakes that are of comparable latitude to get a sense of the ice out variations you may expect in your area of Wi. Its median ice out date is March 29. On Rainy Lake, the ice is considered out when a boat can travel from Sha Sha Resort to Kettle Falls Hotel unimpeded by ice. Tim Walz's annual turkey hunt. The Minnesota State Climatology Office says the first ice out reports have started arriving. Low DO readings were recorded at Silver Lake on 1/8/14. West Side Mille Lacs Lake. To figure out how much accumulated spring warmth it takes to thaw ice from several popular northern Minnesota lakes, I calculated the amount of heat (or thawing degree days) recorded by the National Weather Service at a nearby airport (Range Regional Airport in Hibbing, Minnesota). Next weeks inbound air mass originated over the Gulf of Mexico. Schmitt suggests the Fairmont area in south central Minnesota and Faribault area in southeastern Minnesota where they should see ice out by this weekend. McNeal Hall Overall, Long Lake likely did not experience a winterkill. NASA MODIS 250-meter visible satellite image Wednesday. Better predictability means we can plan and take advantage of early open water when it happens. Snow came down well into April this year. Donations made by check can be made out to MinnPost and mailed to us at PO Box 18438, Minneapolis, MN 55418. But whats really noticeable now is how much it swings back and forth now. Downing admits hes a bit of an ice-out, phenology nerd, especially as climate change increases its impact. It's a work in progress and we welcome your feedback. How did we get here? On the widget map select the blue pin closest to the lake youre interested in. The ice-out time is a sensitive indicator of local climate and the date has been arriving earlier in a statistical average sense each year. Jargon Alert! This and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.. The fire danger is Moderate over west central Minnesota and Low over the north. The latest bellwether lakes to . The result may be slow walleye fishing, especially on the larger, deeper lakes, some of which may still be ice-covered. Lake . With temperatures over 40 degrees in the forecast, the ice covering your neighborhood lake may not be long for this world. Downing wanted a tool for friends, colleagues, and family that they could use to better plan for spring activities. The 2018 lake ice out was about three weeks behind the median in southern Minnesota, to two weeks behind in central Minnesota, to about ten days behind in the north. MinnPost's in-depth, independent news is free for all to access no paywall or subscriptions. As the sun shines more directly and the temperatures warm, March through May in Minnesota is generally ice out season, when the ice covering lakes thins, cracks and then disappears, leaving open water. Dead fish were reported following ice-out. Minnesota DNR. Ice varied alot on the pond this winter from 19-30 as of last week. Resorts and cabins can be open earlier and running longer. If you have questions, emaileditors@minnpost.com. Unless something changes in the forecast drastically, were likely to see generally later ice-outs this year, Boulay said, owing to colder temps. Weather needs to be warming in order to melt the ice off of lakes. Leech Lake near Walker recorded ice-out on April 9. Several other lakes in southern Minnesota are ice-free. However was not an extension season. Overall, Hook Lake likely experienced a moderate winterkill. As spring progresses, you can watch the thawing degree days (TDD) numbers climb and you can compare them with Figure 3 to see how likely ice-out is to occur at nearby lakes as weather warms. ), Irving Lake (Near Bemidji) May 4. Length and weight measurements are not taken. The European model is cranking out dew points approaching 70 degrees by next Wednesday and Thursday. But 80s return Wednesday and Thursday next week. Low DO readings were recorded at Big Wolf Lake on 1/29/14, 2/3/14, and 2/10/14. It blows in an increasingly warm and humid air mass next week. Overall, Thompson Lake likely experienced a moderate to severe winterkill. Thats 15 days past the median ice-out date for the past 22 years of April 9. Read the March 2023 Director's Column "Forecasting Ice-Out on Minnesota Lakes" for an explanation of the science and how-to instructions for the widget. Using a few screenshots from ourMinnesota Lake Ice-In and Ice-Out Widget, here's how to use the widget. He says he was out ice fishing Tuesday locally and can't remember another time where a person could drive a 4-wheeler on the ice, and ice fish with shorts and a t-shirt. It's April 27. Schmitt says for those that want to still do some ice fishing he suggests driving to northern Minnesota. When I was a kid in Minnesota, my family never thought about going to the lake before Memorial Day, and, although some years the lakes were clear of ice a bit early, ice-out in Itasca County was always around May Day, plus or minus a few days. Low DO readings were recorded at Star Lake on 1/29/14, 2/3/14, 2/14/14, and 3/21/14. Ice cover hung around very late this spring in northeast Minnesota. A lakeside resident reported many dead northern pike following ice out. On 5/1/14, the trap nets caught a total of 1 white sucker, 2 northern pike, 2 bluegills, 3 bowfin, 3 yellow perch, 3 common carp, and 5 black crappies. Note: Walleye ponds are not usually sampled since they are often stocked regardless of whether or not winterkill occurred. Very few fish were seen while electrofishing and included fathead minnows, black bullheads, and central mudminnows. On 4/22/14, the trap nets caught a total of 2 yellow perch, 2 golden shiners, 13 northern pike, and 100+ black bullheads. For northern-third lakes, the deadline is March 21. Its April 27. Meanwhile, the shoreline starts to warm, creating separation between ice and land. For 218 entries of ice-out dates, go to the MN DNR Ice Out Index . All rights reserved. Those who were out were having some success. Minnesota State Climatology Office; National Weather Service; . This is how Mille Lacs looked on May 9, 2013. If you want to calculate freezing or thawing degree days from other dates and years, you can play around with these in the Geeky section below the map. Overall, Otter Lake likely experienced a light winterkill. Its relatively simple to use and weve included a Geeky section for those who like to play with data. There may still be some ice in some of the bays. The widget starts measuring any thawing-degree days in January. Granted this is in MN but if you go to the MN DNR ice out page you can use the quick zoom feature to pick out individual lakes. [see: 2023 Lake Ice-Out Dates | DNR Conservation Officer Reports] Dead fish were reported following ice-out. April 9, 1980 Osakis ReviewThanks to the Osakis Review, Lake Osakis has the longest consistent ice out records.One study looked at 60 northern hemisphere lakes, several in Minnesota, and found that ice-out was happening an average of 6.8 days earlier per century. Our sunnier, warmer spring weather is working on stubborn lake ice across northern Minnesota. Once temperatures get above freezing, though, that snow starts to melt, allowing light to penetrate the ice. Both lakes report ice-out on April 13. How late, and whether the May 13 walleye opener might be impacted, depends on how fast those thawing-degree days start picking up. Schmitt indicates he's heard people fishing the channels on Lake Minnetonka despite the ice still on the lake there. On 5/22/14, the trap nets caught a total of 1 white sucker, 1 largemouth bass, 1 bowfin, 2 golden shiners, 5 common carp, 10 brown bullheads, 19 black crappies, and 19 black bullheads. April 8, 2022 at 2:40 pm #2114939. The map below depicts lake ice in date reports received by the DNR and the MPCA for 2023. He says the next steps would be looking for panfish in shallow muddy bays. We catch a bit of a break Tuesday with highs back into the 70s. The dynamic context server has an entry for monitoring ice-out conditions on Minnesota lakes. Chester Park Bldg It's helpful to remember that you can have more than one degree day in a 24-hour period. Ice-out on Minnesota lakes. That helped keep lake ice in place longer than usual. Ice out on Sawn lake near Mankato came in Monday, April 4. That's just a day . Thats how it gets thinner.. (Average April 24.). The definition of lake ice out can vary from lake to lake. He says in regards to the ice "it's going to go quick". If you take an ice cube out of the freezer for five minutes, it will still be pretty frozen when you put it back in. This estimate isnt perfect though because lake size, ice thickness, snow cover, and windiness can make ice thaw more quickly or more slowly. Thawing degree days (TDDs) is a measure of accumulated springtime heat. Temperatures this month are running 6.1 degrees colder than average through April 26 in the Twin Cities. The lake was opened to liberalized fishing from 2/12/14 to 2/23/14. A handful of lakes in the southern part of Minnesota report open water between April 8 and April 14. Sawbill lake reports an ice-out on May 14 this year. Trap nets were set on 4/28/14 and no dead fish were observed along the shoreline. The ice acts like a greenhouse, so the water beneath it begins to warm and thats how it thaws it thaws from the bottom up, he said. Check ice thickness at least every 150 feet. Trap nets were set on 4/22/14 and no dead fish were observed along the shoreline. Ice-out on some lakes in northeast Minnesota is near or at the latest on record according to the Minnesota DNR. But, so far this winter, that hasnt been happening. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has a big dataset on ice out dates, with some data points going back to the 1800s. John . If you take it out for an hour, there will be no ice cube to put back in the freezer. Meteorologists measure the power of weather to melt ice as cumulative thawing degree days (TDDs). Outdoors | Your safety is your responsibility. NASA, via University of Wisconsin-Madison, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. That caused a surge of runoff into the network of streams and rivers in northeast Minnesota and along the North Shore. Highs surge into the 80s across southern Minnesota as soon as Monday afternoon. He says ice fishing in Central Minnesota is done and now we await the ice to melt on area lakes. The graph above shows how heat accumulated in spring over the last 40 years or so for one weather station close to the northern Minnesota lakes. These lakes are identified by conducting dissolved oxygen tests throughout the winter and observing dead fish after ice-out. When thawing-degree days hit 220 for the weather station closest to your lake, thats when ice-out is likely to occur in the Northland. Many lakes in Minnesota are ice-free closer to the record earliest date than the median ice-out date. Immediately following ice-out, dead fish were reported and confirmed throughout the lake. No reports of dead fish were collected after ice-out. For more information on ice safety contact the MN DNR and ask for our free ice safety publications, which include the brochures, "Danger, Thin Ice" and "Cold Water Kills" and the wallet-sized reference card and 11X14 posters titled, "Minimum Recommended Ice Thicknesses." Metro (651) 296-6157 or toll free outside the metro area 1-888-646-6367 or . Most lakes that dot central and northern Minnesota are still sporting a thick coat of ice. (Note: Rice Lake is listed as "Rice 270116") Channel Dredging. It's hard to draw conclusions from the Minnesota ice out data alone, but Lesley Knoll, associate director of . Even in far-southern Minnesota, at Fairmont, there were only 10 thawing-degree days tallied as of early this week. No dead fish were reported following ice-out. Ice-out assessments are used to assess the extent of winterkill in lakes that experienced low dissolved oxygen levels during the previous winter. Will you help us keep it this way by supporting our nonprofit newsroom with a tax-deductible donation today? Minnesota's long, snowy winter has delayed the onset of spring, but this week's blowtorch of warmth has eased some anxiety felt by anglers and resort . Overall, Hoff Lake likely experienced a moderate winterkill. In 2013, the lake still had . . Several lakes near Fairmont, Minnesota are now ice-free. However, a thaw doesnt really count toward thawing if the average of the high and low temperatures during the day isnt above 32 degrees F because the net effect of daytime heat wont translate to a net melting of ice. Captured fish are identified, counted, and released. This widget uses "degree days," which are measures of how cold (Freezing Degree Days) or warm (Thawing Degree Days) a location is. Minnesota has 11,842 lakes that are 10 or more acres in size, 4,500 of which are considered fishing lakes. Next week will feel more like June across Minnesota. . Dead fish were reported following ice-out. Trap nets were set on 4/21/14 and a count of dead fish along the shoreline revealed hundreds of common carp, many black crappies, and a few walleyes, northern pike, and bullheads. Minnesota Sea Grant (MNSG) Director John A. Outdoors | Three years ago, we stepped off a plane in Minneapolis and wondered, now what? This years lack of any thawing-degree days to date makes it hard to predict, but in past years with zero thawing-degree days at this point, the average ice-out was about May 1, Downing said. Many big lakes are now ice-free in central and northern Minnesota. Trap nets were set on 4/15/14 and a count of dead fish along the shoreline revealed hundreds of common carp and a few channel catfish and bullheads. Minnesotas lakes spend most of the winter covered in snow, which insulates them from the suns rays and reflects that light back up toward the sky, said Pete Boulay, assistant state climatologist. Some people that attended include DNR commissioner Sarah Strommen, Rep. Rick Hansen, DFL-South St. Paul, Sen. Foung Hawj, DFL-St. Paul, NWTF director of development Tom Glines and members from the Learn-to-Hunt program. Member donations are crucial to the work of our nonprofit newsroom. The earliest recorded ice-out date was April 2, 2012. The figure above shows the day number (from January 1) on which popular lakes in northern Minnesota lose their ice from some of the earliest records to the most recent. Thats just a day shy of the latest ice-out date on record which is May 15, 2014. April 9 was the official ice-out date for 2021 on Leech Lake, which is earlier than the median ice-out date of April 28. Through 2012, May 15 was the latest ice had ever persisted on Mille Lacs, the second largest lake in the state. Generally, the DNR tries to use the same observer every year to get a consistent measure of ice out, Boulay said. No dead game fish were seen. Outdoors | Rain can be a big factor; it really speeds it up, Downing said. Court-enforceable police reform is coming to Minneapolis. I know if Im eager to know when I will be able to put my dock in, and put my boat in, that there are other people who have cabins or resorts who want to know when they can get in and when people are going to start coming north. Back into the 70s he suggests driving to northern Minnesota the larger, lakes!, 2/3/14, 2/14/14, and family that they could use to better plan for spring activities of to... Big dataset on ice out dates, with some data points going back to the DNR... 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