With better than 99.9% of the ice on Clary Lake gone, I’m calling Ice Out today, April 2nd. The above picture, taken at ice out LAST year on April 1st, is a lot like what it would look like today if it was sunny out. Today it’s kinda overcast. There is just little bit of ice floating in the marsh by the boat launch and a few small bits of ice clinging to the south shore in a few spots- not enough to hamper lake access and certainly not enough to delay calling ice out. I don’t know about the rest of you but I for one am incredibly grateful to see open water again. It was a long, cold winter!

The winner of the contest is Ben Gerdts. Congratulations Ben! He’ll get a $25 gift certificate from The Jefferson Scoop which I fully expect he will share with his wife Hillary (who happens to be the Clary Lake Association vice-president) and their daughter Eleanor. Yay ice cream!

Now for a bit of science. From our Ice in and Ice Out Dates for Clary Lake page: We’ve only been recording data for 25 years which in climate change terms is not very long at all. However, we can already see that on average, ice in is happening just a wee bit later every fall, and ice out is happening just a wee bit earlier every spring. The number of ice free days on Clary Lake is clearly increasing (as evidenced by the rising trendline) because it is affected by the minor changes in both statistics and is being “squeezed” at both ends:

This year’s ice out is only 1 day later than last year’s date and both dates are hugging the downward sloping blue trendline in the above chart, indicating a distinct trend toward more ice free days each year. This is not entirely a good thing, as much as we all like warm weather and open water, More ice free days per year contributes to generally warmer water temperatures which is not good for water quality.