Staff
Setting a record for the earliest ice-out of Rainy Lake is still a possibility, but the chances of it happening are up in the air.
If the ice goes out before next Tuesday (April 13), it will be the earliest on record—breaking the mark set in 1998.
At the very least, the mark for latest ice-out—set in 1950—appears to be safe given May 22 is still about six weeks away.
The Minnesota Climatology Working Group reported Rainy Lake was under partial ice cover on Wednesday.
Fort Frances Airport superintendent Bill Caul, meanwhile, said a pilot from Thunder Bay reported the lake still was about half ice-covered as of yesterday morning, with some of the ice pulled away from shore.
Across the border, Einarson Flying Service in International Falls reported yesterday that Dryweed Island to the Brule Narrows still was iced-in, as were the Minnitaki Islands and to the Kettle River.
Al Zucchiatti is one local who is itching to get up to his cabin on the North Arm, and was keeping his fingers crossed he would be able to make the trek by boat sometime this weekend.
“My boat’s in the water at the Sorting Gap,” said Zucchiatti. “Most people with cabins are [eager], we just can’t wait to get up there.
“I haven’t been out because I can’t get out to my place at the North Arm,” he noted.
“The North Arm is still blocked off with ice.”
Zucchiatti conceded the ice could disappear overnight, but is more likely to recede gradually.
“You get a wind moving, or a rain, and it could go out overnight,” he explained. “But the North Arm is usually the last part of the lake to go out, and it goes out in stages.
“Closer to the [Noden] Causeway, it goes out fast, and then it works its way out as far as you can see.”
Rusty Myers Flying Service reported it has not had any planes out in the water yet this year.
Gord Melville of Melaire Ltd. was up at camp and unavailable for comment.
According to the Minnesota Climatology Working Group, ice-out on Rainy Lake occurred on April 30 last year, snapping a two-year string of May ice-outs (May 4 in 2007 and May 14 in 2008).
In the two years before that, the ice was out in April—on the 23rd in 2005 and as of the 16th in 2006.
