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Canoe Lake Ice-Out

Spring 2006 Edition

 News & Updates                                                                    Page last updated: Thu 20 April 2006 22:00 EDT

Congratulations to Willi Powell, a life-long Canoe Laker, who is this year's ice-out winner. And cheers to Susan Kingsley, Jeffrey McMurtrie and Matthew Anderton who also picked April 20th.

My father (John Ridpath, who had Saturday as his pick) was on Canoe Lake all day today and reports that the ice was at least 50% off the lake by early afternoon, and that the warm, sunny day and slight north wind took another 20-30% by the end of the day. I have to confess that I really didn't expect it to go for at least another four or five days.

Thanks to everyone for getting involved in this year's ice-out fun. See you all back here in March 2007!

While we wait patiently for the ice to go on Canoe Lake, thanks to Harry Roberts for emailing me about his wife's nifty ice-out tracking site called Journey North Ice-out

"Is this spring the warmest in recorded history? Or is it the coolest? We often hear weather announcers discuss these things. How could you compare spring's arrival from year to year? What could you measure? In northern regions of North America, the melting of ice cover on lakes, rivers, ponds and oceans is a welcome sign of spring. This event is known as "ice-out," and ice-out dates are an accurate way to measure spring's pace from year to year.

The idea is to enter the latitude/longitude of your lake, and the reported ice-out date, and then see your report dynamically mapped. I'll be putting in a report for Canoe Lake as soon as the ice goes, and maybe some of you can help out by entering reports for your lakes.

This ice-out site is part of a much larger Journey North site billed as "A Global Study of Wildlife Migration and Seasonal Change" and definitely worth a peek.

The polls are closed and no new dates will be accepted. Good luck everyone!

All signs are pointing to a slightly early ice-out this year--very likely inside the next ten days.

I've received word this weekend from Libby von Neumann who lives on the channal from Canoe-Bonita-Tea Lakes, and from Roy Stewart who can walk in to his place on Canoe Lake. Both of them believe that things are underway now. The channel is open as is much of Bonita Lake; and Roy says that Canoe is opening up along the edges and the main body of ice is starting to turn. Roy things the ice will go out "later this week."

Libby said on Thursday: "There are big open-water holes on the channel as I type, it has been raining and warm. Birds are back in force and there was even a pair of Canadian Geese right out front here the other day on the ice! They were looking around like "where is the water?" and "they said there would be water here!" When the loons come back is when I really know that that is it for winter! I'll let you know when they get here!""

I also received an email last week from Robert Pratten who said: "Ice went out today April 12th/06 on Little Gold Lake in Kawartha Highlands Prov. Park, 6 days earlier than last year. This lake is about 80 km south of Canoe Lake.

Stay tuned to the site this week. I hope to be posting near-daily updates hopefully including on-site reports from Jan Richmond and Al Clare when they arrive for the season.

Finally, my apologies for the lack of updates to the site this past week. Unfortunately I've been quite sick and have spent a fair bit of time in bed recovering. I'm on the mend now and starting to make plans to go up to Canoe Lake this coming weekend.

Hugh Statten sent along some great shots from a trip up to Canoe Lake just this past Sunday, March 26th.
A little sobering for those of you who think the ice will be out at the end of next week :-)

Well, the votes are flowing into the worldwide head office of Electric Penguin, 37 of them so far. And this year it looks like people are expecting an early ice-out with the median vote right now at around April 21st or 22nd vs. April 27th last year. Rob Waywell certainly thinks it will be early: he's picked April 7th which is next Friday.

It has been warmer this March than it was last year, by a few °C at least. But there was a lot of ice on the lake a couple of weeks ago with some reports claiming well over 24", and it's not that much warmer. So I'm sticking with the tried and true 17-year median of April 26th.

Good luck everyone!

Several people have written to ask if I'll be doing the Canoe Lake Ice-Out site this year. Of course! I'll have the 2006 page up in the next week or so. While you wait, here's what Canoe Lake looked like on Saturday, March 11th, 2006...

 Predictions for Spring 2006

Multiple people on the same date are listed in the order in which their choices were received
at the worldwide headquarters of the Outhouse Daily News.

Here's the current distribution of votes for each date...

 Current Weather for the Canoe Lake Area

 Past Ice-Out Dates

 The Rules

 Previous year's ice-out pages

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