Clary Lake has been trying to freeze over for about 3 weeks now, first at one end, then at the other. Each time it’s melted off. A good section out in front of my place has been ice free all along thanks to the ducks that come to our bird feeding station, they splash around and keep the ice from forming. Clary has just been waiting for a good cold night to freeze over, and last night was it. This morning the temperature was a paltry 9.9° F and from all appearances, the lake is now solidly frozen over. There is no sign of ducks today! Historically, A review of our Ice In and Ice Out Dates page shows that 12/20 is on the late side for the lake to freeze over. With the exception of the freak year in 2016 when the lake actually didn’t freeze over completely until January 15th, this is the latest ice-in date since the lake froze over on December 30, 2006.

The Obligatory Safety Statement: Is That Ice Safe?: It is prudent to wait for the ice to thicken before venturing out on it. My own rule of thumb has been to stay off it until there is at least 2″ of good solid black ice and then to only venture out carefully, and stay close to shore until you’re certain the ice thickness is consistent. It doesn’t hurt to periodically check! Use Caution!

Our ice-in and ice-out data only goes back to 2001 which is really too short a period of time to detect any significant long term trends. Current Averages for Ice in day, Ice out day, and number of ice free days are as follows:

This seemed like an appropriate time to make a Winter 2022 Photo Gallery even though it isn’t 2022 yet.