Lake Minnetonka’s 1878 record for earliest ice-out date stands

In a year in which many weather records have fallen, a longstanding one on Lake Minnetonka will remain on the books.

Officials from the nonprofit Freshwater and the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office Water Patrol had hoped to declare the metro area’s largest lake ice free Monday, which would have tied the record for the earliest ice-out date of March 11, 1878.

The patrol’s Big Lake Assault boat powered its way across large expanses of open water during a reconnaissance mission Monday afternoon but met its match at Brown’s Bay, north of Big Island, and was forced to turn back.

“We would stop dead in our tracks,” said deputy Ryan Greeney, who was piloting the vessel.

“Pretty thick out here,” said co-pilot Chad VanHeel, as he used a metal pole to poke at the 3 to 6 inches of solid ice that still covered Brown’s Bay and Wayzata Bay.

The Twin Cities has set nine high temperature records since Jan. 1 at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, including Monday’s 67-degree temperature. But not even all that warmth could melt a record that has stood 146 years.

Ice-out on Lake Minnetonka is “is a highly anticipated event,” said Freshwater spokesman Chris O’Brien, who joined the water patrol for Monday’s excursion. “It’s exciting to possibly be a record.”

But it was not to be. And it may be a few more days before the sprawling lake is completely thawed.

Ice-out is observed when a boat is able to safely navigate from any shore to any other shore, through any channel and around any island, according to O’Brien, which in concert with the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office has been charting the annual spring tradition for decades.

None of that seemed to matter to Adam Christensen of Shakopee. He spent part of the afternoon fishing for crappies on Harrison Bay and Black Lake where there was open water, marking the first time he’d ever put his boat in Lake Minnetonka in March.

“I was more worried about getting a sunburn,” he joked. Asked if this might be a long boating season, “I’ll take it,” he said.

In a typical winter, Lake Minnetonka would hold onto its ice cover until April 13, the average ice-out date based on records dating to 1855. Last year it happened on April 19. The latest was May 5, 2018, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

Several factors had climatologists and history buffs rooting for a once-in-a-lifetime thaw. The iconic lake didn’t freeze over until Jan. 13, the latest that had ever happened, and ice never got as deep as usual.

“When you have the warmest winter on record, this is what happens,” said Pete Boulay of the state’s Climatology Office. “This is just like the winter of 1877-78. We never thought the record would be broken.”

Every lake in the state froze over but some didn’t for very long, Boulay said.

Lake Okamanpeedan is believed to have been the first in the state to thaw. The lake on the Iowa border in Martin County set a record when it opened up on Feb. 22, and records on other lakes have followed.

The DNR posts color-coded maps on its website with dots showing dates when lakes become ice-free. As of Monday, the agency had scores of lakes with new early ice-out dates, including White Bear Lake last Friday, Upper Prior Lake on March 3, Clear Lake near Waseca on March 1, Crystal Lake northeast of Faribault on Feb. 26 and Long Lake in Stillwater on Feb. 28.

“We are breaking records,” Boulay said. “We are adding a lot more dots.”

In normal winters, lake levels would be on their way up as the snow melts. But this year the metro area has seen only 14.3 inches of snow, the second least on record behind only the 14.2 inches that fell in 1930. Though there is still time to add to that.

The Twin Cities has also seen only 0.78 inches of precipitation since the first of the year. That is concerning to Boulay.

“A lot of lakes get a bump in the spring, but this year they did not,” he said. “They are right there at the levels at which they froze.”

O’Brien and patrol deputies will continue to check conditions this week to call “ice out.”.

Despite no record, “this is one to remember. We have never had this in our lifetime,” Boulay said.