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Latest Ice-In In Recorded History

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January 1st through 7th, 2024

Last week started off with some ice and a lot of green. It ended with some snow and no open water, making for the latest ice-in on Lucerne in recorded history. Recorded history in this case goes back to 1995. The latest ice-in in almost 30 years is still pretty impressive, especially when the late date beats the old record by not hours, not days, but a full week. Well before the weekend, wind and a little warmer air expanded the open water. All it took was a cold, still night for the ice to take back an impressive chunk of open water. A dusting of snow made checking for holes in the ice sheet easier. On Wednesday, the evening sky started to clear and the temperature started to drop. It also got very still. All the clouds did not go away. This kept the temperatures a few degrees warmer. It still got pretty cold, but not cold enough to take all the open water. It did get cold enough for the lake ice to make impressive gains going into the weekend. The forecast was for an inch or so of snow on the weekend. We ended up with 3 inches on the north end of Lucerne. Just as the last flakes fell on Sunday, the last of the open water on the north end of the lake froze. The condition of local roads has been better. Deep snow and drifting is not an issue. The problem involves the packed snow ice that makes tires tractionlessly spin and feet contusionally slip. There will be no running on Knott Lane for some time. Looking back at this weekly report, maybe it sould have been titled "The Drone-y-est Summary Page Ever". Other possible titles include "Snow!" "The End of the Holiday Season" and "The Annual Bottle Rocket War Postponed" That last title was pretty much inevitable given our dislike of involuntary swimming both during fort construction and during the actual event. February bottle rocket wars are rare, but not unprecedented. Sort of like Sunday morning Crandon airport centered earthquakes (2.5 on the Richter scale) or a fire department rescue of an involuntarily swimming deer near Lucerne's islands (Asst. Chief Okrasinski, "THE ICE MAY NOT BE SAFE!!!"). Twenty twenty four (so far): Chucked full of rare, but not unprecedented events.<br><br><br>-Nemo perfers his lakes and roads ice free.

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