After several false starts, the meteorological conditions necessary to freeze up the lake have finally occurred though it remains to be seen if the ice survives the rain and 50° temperature forecast for next Tuesday. Our ice-in and ice-out records go back to 2001 and for what it’s worth, today, December 15th, is the average ice-in date. There were 282 days in 2024 without ice on the lake, considerably more than the average of 254 ice-free days. Gorgeous looking ice, but I’d let it thicken before venturing out on it!

While 23 years really isn’t a long enough period of time for meaningful climate data analysis, a look at the above chart shows clears trends developing for later ice-in and earlier ice-out dates. However, the yellow line showing days between ice-in and ice-out picks up days on both ends and there’s no uncertainty at all in how that statistic is trending.