Publisher’s Perspective

By Tim Douglass, Publisher of the Pope County Tribune

Last week I addressed the lack of spring-like weather we’ve experienced this year.  But little did I know that for a couple of nights last week, the tempeartures dipping into the below zero range were “making ice” rather than deteriorating that lake ice.  Then the weekend brought more snow.

With more cooler than average temperatures forecast for this week, I’m starting to lose confidence that there will be an April ice-off date for Lake Minnewaska.

But, next week temperatures are predicted to reach the 60s, so there is hope.

  I was reading a story on lakes losing their ice covering in the spring.  It was written by By Greta Kaul, Associate Editor of Minnpost.com  She talked to a state climatologist for the information.

Here’s what she wrote about how lake ice melts.

Minnesota’s lakes spend most of the winter covered in snow, which insulates them from the sun’s rays and reflects that light back up toward the sky, said Pete Boulay, assistant state climatologist.

Once temperatures get above freezing, though, that snow starts to melt, allowing light to penetrate the ice.

“The ice acts like a greenhouse, so the water beneath it begins to warm and that’s how it thaws — it thaws from the bottom up,” he said. “That’s how it gets thinner.”

Meanwhile, the shoreline starts to warm, creating separation between ice and land. As temperatures warm and precipitation turns from snow to rain, that rain can also accelerate the melting of lake ice, Boulay said.

As ice melts, it turns into what are called “candles,” long, vertical ice crystals. Melted water fills in the spaces between crystals, and they break apart. Wind can assist in the deicing process, too, breaking up chunks and blowing them around. When wind blows crystals around, they make a jingling sound as they collide.

Anyone who has spent time around a lake in the spring knows that jingling sound ice makes.  So, with that said, many are starting to make predictions about when Lake Minnewaska becomes ice free.  We need to lose the snow covering first then the ice will deteriorate much quicker.

For Minnewaska, the Tribune has been determining the ice-out date for nearly a half century.    In fact, we’ve got records going back to 1906, but the early years were gleaned from historic information provided by the Pope County Historical Soceity.  The Tribune then compiled all the data and continued recording the ice-free date more than 50 years ago.

Some highlights from the records.

The ice-free date for Lake Minnewska is typically in April–sometimes early April and sometimes mid to late April.  The lake lost its ice covering in May only two times since 1906 and one was a record for the latest ice-free date and that was on May 11, 2013, just the day before the walleye fishing opener.  That followed the record for the earliest ice-off date the year before (2012) which was March 21.  The only other May date recorded since 1906 was in 1950 when the ice-off date was recorded on May 7.

So history is on our side for the ice to be off the lake sometime in April.  It may not seem like it right now, especially with another winter storm bearing down on the region, but spring will arrive and let’s hope for some warm sunny days during the last half of this month.