Thaw II: Now with More Thaw!

Last week, Thaw accelerated in the right direction. With the exception of one outlier of 0°F, lows were close to normal and by the weekend highs were in the 40s°F.

There were also wild turkeys.

Knott Lane, mostly in shadow much of the day, is not very clear.

Under the inch or so of packed snow covering the lane, there's ice. We attempted to check the thickness of said ice, but gave up after chipping about two inches deep.

Despite the above freezing temperatures, there's still plenty of tracked up snow on the lake.

Near the end of the week, a few Bottle Rocket War sticks were found and collected.

The warm weekend had some of the men think tree tapping. Feet were added to an ATV. Load testing went well.

The load, aside form some light waving, was particularly static, happy.

The last task of the week was to check on the ice thickness.

It takes more than a bit of time to manually punch a hole this late in the season.

There's just over half a yard of very good ice covering the north end of Lucerne.

The ice and lake water were as clear as ever.

After the holing, a few more sticks were found and picked.

The warmer weekend weather has not been kind to the Bottle Rocket War forts.

After such a warm weekend, we're thinking the annual Lake Lucerne Ice-Out Contest should be posted sooner rather than later. Then we remembered the ice storm at the end of last March and thought better of it. That, and coding/posting it before Lent makes the code monkeys ill tempered and mean. We have something for that, but were saving it for a special occasion. After this warm weather, several meteorological haruspexes have read the entrails and are forecasting a return to a colder, more snowmobile friendly Thaw. It's still February, so duh.

-Nemo prefers early season rain to late season ice storms.

Thaw II: Now with More Thaw!

February 9th through 15th, 2026