Historical Context Of Late Ice-Outs In Northern Minnesota Lakes

The calendar says it's spring, but it sure hasn't felt like it. We were teased with a few warm days here and there, but single-digit low temperatures in the last week have kept things pretty frozen in Northern Minnesota.

Lakes in the northern half of Minnesota are still frozen

I saw a satellite image on Facebook from the Minnesota State Climatology Office that showed all of our lakes still frozen over in the northern half of the state. Yikes. You can see the fresh white snow from the Easter storm that passed through the Midwest.

Checking webcams at resorts in Northern Minnesota, and most of them show the lakes still locked in with ice. A few of them show some open water, but still plenty of ice around.

What Is Ice Out?

Ice out usually means when observers see no ice on the lake. However, some different lakes use different methods, such as when the lake has 90% of the ice out. The method of determining ice out for each lake is consistent.

For many lakes, the latest ice out on record was 2013. It was a very cold winter, and we had a record amount of snow that fell in April, which insulated the lake from melting. For some lakes, ice out didn't happen before the fishing opener, which was on May 11th.

Northern Minnesota Still Has Over A Foot Of Snow Depth In Many Places

The climate office also shared snow depths for Northern Minnesota. Just about all of Northern Minnesota has at least 6" of snow still on the ground, with over two feet in some spots.

Will Ice Out Happen Before Fishing Opener?

It will be closed for some spots. May 9th is the opener this year. Governor Tim Walz will be fishing the opener on the St. Croix River in Stillwater. That's already open, so no worries there. But, Lake of the Woods? Red Lake? Winnebigosh? We could be cutting it close for those lakes way up North.

LOOK: The most extreme temperatures in the history of every state

Stacker consulted 2021 data from the NOAA's State Climate Extremes Committee (SCEC) to illustrate the hottest and coldest temperatures ever recorded in each state. Each slide also reveals the all-time highest 24-hour precipitation record and all-time highest 24-hour snowfall.

Keep reading to find out individual state records in alphabetical order.

Gallery Credit: Anuradha Varanasi