Mille Lacs ice cracks visible from space

It won’t be long before the bigger lakes in central and northern Minnesota shed ice cover.

On the image at the top of this post, you can clearly see ice-free lakes working quickly north. I’ve highlighted Minnetonka, White Bear, and Minnewaska on the image above. I’ve also circled Gull Lake and Mille Lacs which are still ice-covered.

Mille Lacs breaking up

Lake Mille Lacs is showing clear signs of breaking up. The cracks in the Mille Lacs ice sheet are so big now they are visible from 23,000 feet up in orbit from NASA’s MODIS Terra satellite on the image above.

Here’s some ground truth on the state of ice on Mille Lacs from Lyback’s Resort and https://millelacs.com/webcams/.

Ice out moving fast

On the map below, you can see the ice is out on nearly all lakes now in the southwest half of Minnesota. There are even a few smaller lakes reporting ice out in central and northern Minnesota. It’s happening fast this year. You can check the ice-out status of your favorite lake on the Minnesota DNR ice-out map.

With our weekend warmth and stiff southerly winds again Friday, I expect many more lakes will go ice-free this weekend. It’s possible we could see some ice shoves on the north shore of bigger lakes Friday.