April 22, 2021: Even Less Ice

This morning’s satellite shot is a little blurry, but you can still make out some ice on Shoal Lake.

Click on this to see a version with landmarks tagged.

Terra satellite’s MODIS image for April 22, 2021, in false colour.

Justin Martin sent me another batch of aerial photos today.

You can click on these to see a larger version with more detail.

Scotty Island.

This is Scotty Island as seen from the Manitou, looking north east towards town. Minor patches of ice at the lower left, by Slate Island, and at the right side by Strawberry Island.

Cat Island. Strawberry Island.

The view west from over Middle Island, which is partially visible at the bottom of the frame. The double patch of ice by Strawberry Island is the same one as in the previous photo, but with better lighting.

Next we’ll take a closer look at those ice pans in the distance.

The Manitou.

Further westward, this is the view down the Manitou, with the Slate Islands* in the middle and Whiskey Island to their right. At the bottom of the frame is the south west tip of Scotty. Still isolated patches of ice here, too.

*Slate Island (singular) is near Scotty Island. The Slate Islands (plural, a chain) are just slightly further west in the middle of the Manitou.

There are also two Galt Islands. One is near Devil’s Gap on Lake of the Woods, and the other is on Shoal Lake, near Martinique Island, which is quite separate from the similarly named island in the Caribbean.

Thompson Island, Poplar Bay, The Tangle.

Looking north, with Keewatin visible in the distance if you zoom in. That patch by Hough’s Island is about as weak as a sheet of ice can get and still hold together.

Quarry Island, Queen Bee Island, Sultana Island.

Here we’re looking east into Bald Indian Bay at the left, and Pine Portage Bay at the right. That’s Heaps Point at the bottom of the picture. A lonely and desperate pan of ice clings to Kipling Island. It’s doomed.

Now down to the Barrier Islands.

The Elbow.

Looking south over the Elbow, so we have Allie Island at the left and Shammis Island at the right. Oliver Island is just left of center. It looks like most of the pans in this area have shrunk, but survived another day.

We’ve done better than expected today, reaching 16°C this afternoon.  Let’s hope we can beat the odds tomorrow, too, because there’s talk of snow during the day and an overnight low of -5° Friday night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

April 22, 2021: Scattered Pans

There’s still a little ice, but it won’t impede boaters much.

I’ll start with a satellite image from yesterday morning.

If you click on this image, you’ll see landmarks tagged.

Terra satellite’s MODIS image for April 21, 2021, in false colour.

It looks as if the south end of the lake is completely clear now, but there’s still significant ice on Shoal Lake, and some small patches around the Manitou and the Barrier Islands.

Now fast forward to yesterday evening, when Justin Martin snapped a few shots at sunset.

You can click on these pictures to see a full-size version.

Downtown Kenora, Devil’s Gap.

The area around Kenora is clear. Even Gun Club Island, at the right edge of the frame, and Rogers Island, near the center, which are late to thaw because of ice roads, are open.

The Manitou.

Out on the Manitou, only scattered pans remain. This shot looks south east from over Welcome Channel, with Thompson Island and Wolf Island in the foreground. Whiskey Island is at the right edge, and Scotty Island is at the left. Right in the middle of the picture, glowing in the sunlight, is Manitou Island. As you can see, there are some ice pans out there, but it looks as if you could simply go around them if they were in your way.

The Barrier Islands.

Meanwhile, the ice by the Barrier Islands is also disintegrating. This shot looks south east with Shammis Island in the center and Mather Island to the left. Beyond that are Allie Island and the Elbow. There are patches of ice both north (lower left corner) and south (right of center) of Shammis, but they don’t amount to much.

 

Shoal Lake.

Here, we’re looking south west down Shoal Lake with Helldiver Bay in the foreground, and Martinique and Galt Islands near the middle of the shot. There’s still some pretty extensive ice on Shoal, and it’s common for Shoal Lake to clear a few days later than Lake of the Woods.

Today’s forecast is for sunny skies, south breezes, and a high of about 13°C. I think that’ll just about finish off the ice on Lake of the Woods. I kind of hope so, because tonight the temperatures are expected to drop to about 1°C, and then stay there all day Friday. With snow, probably.

I’m going to put my patio furniture out on the deck today, but I’ll be bringing the cushions in this evening.

April 20, 2021: Ice Pans

Despite some cold days, the ice is breaking up.

A couple of satellite pictures to show the progress.

This is from Saturday:

April 17, 2021.

And this is from Monday:

April 19, 2021.

Even from space, you can see that the ice sheets are breaking apart.

Let’s take a closer look, from one of the MAG Canada Cessna 337 training flights yesterday. Pictures courtesy of Justin Martin.

You can click on these to see a full-size version.

The Manitou.

Looking west down the Manitou. Scotty Island is at the lower left, by the aircraft’s nose. The largest sheet of ice here is between Scotty and Whiskey Island. Right in the middle of the ice, Lemon Island and Manitou Island have clear patches to their south, like shadows. I think that’s from the ice being driven by a north wind.

Bigstone Bay.

The mouth of Bigstone Bay has been blocked until recently. Below the Cessna’s wingtip, you can find Heenan Point stretching out towards Needle Point near the middle of the picture. The two points were acting as kind of a choke point for the ice sheet, but it has cleared. At the right side are the Hades, and the ice pan in the foreground is just off Middle Island’s Heaps Point. The ice road is cracking up like a giant bar code.

Let’s take a look at things south of the Barrier Islands.

Whiteout Island.

Looking north towards the Barrier Islands. My chart doesn’t give a name to the chain of three islands in the middle of this picture, but the one to the right of them is Whiteout Island. As we saw in the satellite images, the big sheet of ice is fragmenting.

Barrier Islands: Allie and East Allie Islands.

Justin’s next shot takes us just a little further north to better see the Barrier Islands. Allie Island and East Allie Island stretch across the middle of the frame here, with the Devil’s Elbow left of center.

Big Narrows Island.

This is about as far down the lake as Justin got. We’re looking west over Big Narrows Island towards a sunlit sheet of ice on Shoal Lake in the distance.

Justin has more flights this week, so I hope we can all see the last ice go. Thanks Justin!

 

April 19, 2021: Compared to Last Year

We’re almost there. We’re stuck with a couple more days of shivery weather, but even if the remnants of ice hold out through those, Thursday’s warmth—currently expected to reach 14°C—will wipe them out. Of course, even while it’s cold, wind and wave action are working to destroy ice every hour.

In preparation for today’s radio chat with Ken O’Neil at Q-104, I was updating my graphs, and I noticed something.

Let’s say the ice holds out another day or two. The Brick Graph will look like this.

Brick Graph.

For this graph, I put the date the lake is 100% clear of ice into a five-day period (because sometimes I’m not sure of the exact date). So you can see we had a pretty early thaw this year, probably the third earliest of this century.

The Pancake Graph puts a slightly different spin on it.

You can click on this graph to enlarge it.

Pancake Graph.

This graph, more formally called the Inflection to Thaw Calendar, gives each year a bar that starts on the date of the Inflection Point* and ends when the lake is ice free. Two things jump out at me here:

First, despite starting early, this is the slowest thaw on the chart. We hit consistently above freezing temperatures early, but they were barely above freezing. As far as defining it by air temperature is concerned, the thaw looks set to drag on to about 48 days.

Second, look at last year’s bar: the thaw didn’t start until now!**

*The Inflection Point is when the Mean Daily Temperature rose above freezing for keeps.

**In terms of air temperature, anyway. On this graph, the 2020 thaw was fast, at 18 days. It does not take into account that water currents would have been thinning the ice from below while the air was still cold.

“Huh,” I said. “Do I have any photographs from late April last year in the archives?”

Do I! Check this out:

Lake of the Woods on April 18, 2020.

This photo was sent to me by Bruce White, who works (or worked, perhaps, as the air transport industry is in terrible shape right now) for Air Canada, as his flight passed along the south shore of Lake of the Woods. It looks north, with Big Island at the bottom of the frame, and the Alneau Peninsula prominent in the middle. This time last year, the whole lake was frozen over.

Other photos taken at this time last year show the ice from lower altitudes, and it looks hard and white, with little snow cover. You can use the Archive Tool (located on this web page’s right hand sidebar) to visit the Ice Patrol posts from April of 2020, or any other spring month in recent years.

Also, you might recall that in 2014, the year Ice Patrol debuted as a fully fledged web site*, there was real concern that the lake might not be open for the May long weekend. We made it, but barely.

*Ice Patrol began in the nineties, as verbal reports to friends, and grew to an informal email thing before launching as a WordPress blog in 2014.

By the way, on this site, “ice free” means it’s all gone. 100%. Not enough ice left to make a Margarita! Why? Because although many lake dwellers can reach their camps when the lake is mostly open, not all can. In fact, this whole project started because I had friends who bought a camp by an ice road, and were frustrated that they couldn’t get there by boat when most other cottagers were happily cleaning up the mouse poop and putting out the patio furniture.

Okay, maybe happily isn’t the right word, but hey, we all have PPE now! It would be wise to wear your mask and gloves while cleaning your kitchen counters, and it is especially important if your property is gifted with raccoon droppings, because they pose a significant health hazard.

So, aside from the whole miserable Covid thing, we’re having a good spring. I have some friends flying this week, so I hope to get pictures of the last ice in the next few days, weather permitting.

April 18, 2021: Remaining Ice

I don’t think anyone will be taking new aerial photographs today; the visibility is down to about a kilometer in snow.

But Shaun Clifford did send me this pair of pictures, taken 24 hours apart:

Yesterday.

Today.

So yeah, spring weather, yay.

It’s a good thing Kelly Belair went flying yesterday with his partner Ashley Kolisnik to see how much ice is left.

You can click on these images to see larger, full screen versions.

12 Mile Portage.

12 Mile Portage cuts across a narrow part of Shammis Island, and is a regular route for an ice road. This view looks north and the ice on the north side of the Barrier Islands is pretty rotten.

Scotty Island.

This shot looks north east from over Scotty Island. Nanton Island, Bell’s Island and Lunny Island are at the left edge of the frame. Part of Middle Island is at the right, including Heaps Point. You can see how the remnants of the ice roads are helping to hold the weak ice together.

Andrew Bay.

Gaberty Island and Slate Island are near the middle of this picture that looks east into Andrew Bay. Moore Bay is in the distance to the left of center, and shining in the upper left corner is the south east end of Bigstone Bay.

You may have realized that the emphasis at Ice Patrol has shifted from photographing the water to photographing the ice. This happens naturally, as the lake goes from almost entirely frozen over, to nearly open. So yes, the lake is down to less than 10% ice covered. Pretty much everything you don’t see in these pictures is ice-free.

There is still significant ice in the Manitou, and on Shoal Lake. Kelly reports that most small lakes in the Kenora area are clear.

Kelly’s assessment is that this ice will all be gone in a couple of days, which would put us right on Sean Cockrem’s estimate of ice free on April 20th. He said that on the 24th of March, by the way.

Thursday will be warm, with temperatures rising into the double digits, so I think that’s the longest any remnants of ice could last. But Monday and Tuesday are barely expected to top freezing, so I think some ice could hold on that long, and perhaps into Wednesday, when it’s starting to turn only a little warmer.

Oh, I almost forgot: the Coney Island footbridge is scheduled to come out tomorrow, weather permitting, or later next week if Monday’s weather is unsuitable. That will open up the waterways for boats from Kenora to head out onto the lake through Devil’s Gap.

April 17, 2021: Satellite Saturday / Travel Restrictions

Warm temperatures and sunny skies meant both Aqua and Terra satellites were able to get MODIS images of Lake of the Woods today.

Here’s what Terra saw this morning.

You can click on this image to see a version with tags for landmarks.

Terra satellite’s MODIS image for April 17, 2021, in false colour.

Looks like we’re down to about 10% ice cover now, but most of what remains is located where it still prevents boaters from reaching popular areas.

Here’s how it looked to Aqua in the afternoon, with less cloud cover.

Aqua satellite’s MODIS image for April 17, 2021, in false colour.

There are visible differences. For starters, the ice clinging to the lake’s south shore is markedly reduced. Perhaps more subtle, the northern ice is also shrinking by the hour. Take a close look at the ice sheet in Bigstone Bay north of Hay Island. It’s faded a lot today. I’d say the ice on Shoal Lake has thinned, too, but only a little.

And just in case you find the false colour version hard to assess, here’s the same image in true colour. [and with no infrared component]

Aqua satellite’s MODIS image for April 17, 2021, in true colour.

While Bigstone Bay is undergoing rapid change, things seem more stable on the Manitou, at least as seen from space.

Devon Ostir sent me a picture from his Dock Cam on Hare Island, looking out at the receding ice on the Manitou.

View south from Hare Island.

He says there’s been a big change in the last day or two. Thanks Devon.

Change of subject.

By now you’ve probably heard that Ontario is closing its borders with Manitoba and Quebec for all but essential travel, starting tomorrow. Here’s a link to a CBC News story that covers Ontario’s new restrictions in general, including a link to the Order in Council that pertains to travel from Manitoba and Quebec.

And here’s the official wording of Section 2 of the Order in Council.

Certain travel into Ontario from Manitoba and Quebec prohibited
No person shall travel into Ontario from Manitoba or Quebec unless,
(a) the person’s principal residence is in Ontario;
(b) the person is moving to Ontario in order to make their principal residence in Ontario;
(c) the person is travelling through Ontario without unnecessary stops to reach their principal residence in another jurisdiction;
(d) the person is travelling into or through Ontario by means of an international or interprovincial bus, train, ferry, or flight;
(e) the person is travelling to perform work in Ontario;
(f) the person is transporting goods into or through Ontario as part of the operation of a business that involves the transportation of goods;
(g) the person’s health makes it necessary to travel into Ontario to obtain health care or social services;
(h) the person is travelling in a vehicle that is transporting or that will transport a person in Ontario to or from a hospital or health care facility in Manitoba or Quebec;
(i) the person is being transported from a hospital or health care facility in Manitoba or Quebec, whether by ambulance or by any other means;
(j) the person is,
(i) in the care of a children’s aid society in Ontario pursuant to a court order or a written agreement,
(ii) in the care of a person subject to the supervision of a children’s aid society in Ontario pursuant to a court order or a written agreement, or
(iii) at least 16 years old and no more than 21 years old and receiving care, services or support pursuant to an agreement with a children’s aid society in Ontario;
(k) the person must enter Ontario to exercise custody or access rights contained in an agreement;
(l) the person must enter Ontario to comply with an order contained in a decision or judgment of a court or tribunal, or as otherwise required by law;
(m) the person is travelling into Ontario for the purpose of exercising an Aboriginal or treaty right as recognized and affirmed by section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982;
(n) the person is travelling into Ontario to respond to a critical incident, including travel for the purpose of,
(i) preventing injury or illness to persons,
(ii) preventing damage to property, or
(iii) performing a necessary action to respond to the critical incident; or
(o) the travel is necessary for a humanitarian or compassionate reason, such as,
(i) providing care or services to a person who requires them due to their state of health,
(ii) attending on a person who is dying, or
(iii) attending a funeral.

From the point of view of a cottage owner, that’s very restrictive. I’ve only copied out Section 2 here, but you can use the link to the Order in Council above to read the PDF in its entirety. Section 1 is about who can police the act, and Section 3 is about the obligations of people who are stopped under its provisions.

 

April 16, 2021: Today’s Photos / News

These aerial photographs were taken just before noon today, by MAG Canada‘s Justin Martin.

You can click on these pictures to see a larger, zoomable version.

Hay Island.

Looking north west along Hay Island towards Middle Island and Scotty Island. Needle Point is at the lower right corner.

Pine Portage Bay, Sultana Island, Bald Indian Bay.

This same pan of ice was photographed yesterday afternoon by Quinn Wilson. It looks thinner now. It also shrank noticeably in the span of twenty hours, and lost some of the smaller pans that surrounded it.

Pine Portage Bay, including Northern Harbour.

I waited a bit to see if I got any late arriving photos, or if one of the satellites managed to catch a break in the cloud cover, but it looks like that’s it for today.

Oh. No it’s not. I forgot to check the news today. This Covid-19 update about provincial border checkpoints from CBC News. 

We’re just days away from full ice-out now, and some popular areas of the lake are already reachable.

For the rest, a lot may depend on our weekend weather. As if to keep the suspense going, it’s a mixed bag. The Weather Network says we’re looking at a crisp -7°C tonight, but temperatures should rebound to 10° by Saturday afternoon.

 

April 16, 2021: New Aerials / Big Changes

A week of cloud and snow has left us all wondering what’s happening on the lake. But poor flying weather and cloud cover that blocked the satellites from seeing anything left us all in the dark. Until yesterday.

First, it cleared up enough yesterday afternoon that NASA’s Aqua satellite managed to image most of Lake of the Woods.

If you click on this picture, you’ll see a version with some landmarks tagged.

Aqua satellite’s image from April 15, 2021, in false colour.

There are clearly areas of ice on Shoal Lake, and both north and south of the Barrier Islands. Closer to Kenora, cloud cover makes it hard to be confident, but it looks like mostly open water. The south end of the lake looks completely clear. This is possible, it was down to free-floating sheets of ice five days ago, and that stuff is very vulnerable to wind action.

Let’s follow up with some aerial photography to get a more detailed picture of how it’s going. My friend Quinn Wilson was out for a training flight in one of the MAG Canada fire detection planes, a Cessna 337. He took these pictures on Thursday afternoon.

If you click on these pictures, you’ll see a larger full screen version.

Bigstone Bay, Hay Island.

In this shot, the camera is pointing south across Bigstone Bay at Hay Island. Interestingly, the east end of the bay is mostly water, but there are extensive ice sheets west of Copper Island. In the distance, Moore Bay appears open, but Andrew Bay and everything further south look icy.

Pine Portage Bay.

From the other side of the plane, Pine Portage Bay, home of Northern Harbour. The marina is just visible at the right edge.

Town Island, Keewatin Channel, Second Channel, The Tangle.

Looking north. Town Island is at the lower right, and the picture is roughly centered on Shragge’s Island. It looks like the water is open from Kenora all the way to Leisure Island now.

The Manitou.

In the other direction, the Manitou is still covered in ice. I don’t know the name of the island in the foreground; it’s next door to Hough’s. Whiskey Island is at the right, and the Barrier Islands are in the distance.

Welcome Channel.

Welcome Channel is still frozen over, but the shorelines are starting to let go.

Poplar Bay.

The strange track-like feature is just a reflection of the upholstery stitching in side the plane.

Abbott Island, Cross Island, Turnbull Island, Rheault Bay.

West of Keewatin, there’s still pan ice close to town.

Crowe Island, Anglican Island Channel Island, Shragges Island, Keewatin Channel, Second Channel, Canoe Channel.

As you can see, this area is open except for where the ice roads ran, but there’s still plenty of ice further out on the lake. Quinn says all that ice looks poor, though. Thanks, Quinn!

Only days now until the lake is fully open.

I’ve got more photos coming in, taken this morning, but while I receive them and sort them out, I’ll put this batch up for people to see.

I’ll put the newest photos up in a separate post later today.

 

April 11, 2021: New Aerials

Kelly Belair and his kids have contributed aerial photos starting last year. Here’s what he sent me today.

We’ll start with the ones taken yesterday, Saturday April 10.

You can click on these pictures to see the full-size version.

The Elbow.

Kelly flies a Maule, and the photographer on this flight was his daughter, Taylor Belair. So this shot looks south at the Elbow, which is the gap in the Barrier Islands between Allie Island, on the left, and Mather Island on the right.

French Narrows.

Here’s another passage through the Barrier Islands: French Narrows lies between East Allie Island (the twin points at the left of the photo) and the mainland of the Eastern Peninsula. This shot looks north, with Andrew Bay in the corner to the right of the wing strut.

Poplar Bay, Holmstrom’s Marsh, The Tangle.

North east over Poplar Bay, with The Tangle near the center of the shot and Holmstrom’s Marsh at the right edge. Kenora is near the upper left corner.

Then this lovely shot.

Water bomber near Cross Island.

It’s not very often I have to figure out the location of someone’s photo that doesn’t have even one whole island in it, but we’re looking roughly north west, and that’s Cross Island with Turnbull Island in the background. (I don’t actually know all 14,000 islands; Kelly gave me a hint, he said it was near Keewatin.)

Lower Black Sturgeon. 

Looking north or north west at Lower Black Sturgeon, with Black Sturgeon Narrows out of frame at the right edge.

For fun, Kelly also sent me this picture he took on April 5 of last year.

Holmstrom’s Marsh, Welcome Channel.

Haha, you say: look at all the ice.

Well, it’s probably going to snow tonight. Plus other lovely forms of precipitation like drizzle and freezing drizzle. Because I put the summer tires on ten days ago. Luckily, I’m not travelling much.

Even with that, we’re still doing much better than most years. We’ve only fallen behind if you compare this spring to the exceptionally early ones.

Signs of spring: I saw a pair of Mallards today. Also Caroline found a tick on our dog, Ebony*. Yay.

*Ebony is new. Our (mostly) Husky, Piper, succumbed to complications of Lyme Disease earlier this spring. She was only six. It was lonely without a dog in the house, so we have adopted two-year-old Ebony from A Dog’s Life.

April 10, 2021: Satellite Saturday / Multiple Contributors

Okay, this is going to be a long post, because several people sent me stuff.

But first, the week’s big news.

Ontario has gone back into lockdown, and this time it includes a stay-at-home order.

Here’s the wording from the alert that popped up on my phone:

A stay-at-home order is in effect. Only leave home for essential purposes such as food, health care, vaccines, exercise or work. It’s the law. Stay home, save lives.

And here’s a link to some more detailed information.

I have not found any specific wording about visiting summer residences in the new order. I have enquired, but it may take a while to get a response. The old rules from the previous lockdown were that you could: A) visit your camp for up to 24 hours to perform necessary maintenance, in which case you cannot be in contact with anyone, or B) isolate for 14 days, so you’d have to bring gas and food with you to last for for two weeks before you could go shopping.

It gets more complicated if you are visiting from Manitoba, as you might also have to isolate for 14 days upon your return, but I’ve been told this needn’t apply as long as you adhere to the Ontario requirements while here.

Here’s an excerpt from the Manitoba government website that was updated on April 8:

As per the public health order, 14 days of self-isolation is required for people returning or coming to Manitoba from all jurisdictions.

Now back to a more comfortable topic: the weather. The NASA satellites got good images on April 6, and then it turned cloudy until today.

Here’s what things looked like on Tuesday the 6th.

If you click on this image, you’ll see a version with some landmarks tagged.

Aqua satellite’s MODIS image from April 6, 2021, in false colour.

Today’s images haven’t been uploaded yet.

In the meantime, I have a picture from Devon Ostir, whose dock cam on Hare Island looks out on the Manitou.

With the exception of the satellite imagery, you can click on today’s pictures to see a full-screen version that is zoomable.

Next up, a drone shot of Keewatin Channel, courtesy of Paul Leischow.

I chose this specific shot from over Crowe Island because it shows that the water is open all the way to Keewatin. Actually, there’s a whole 360° panorama, and you can view it here if you want to scope out Rat Portage Bay or the Tangle from this vantage point.

Now photos from Josh Broten, and they are very revealing.

Over Buffalo Bay looking east to Garden Island.

Looking east at the big ice patch between Garden, Big, and Oak Island.

Over Windfall Island looking north between Falcon Island and the Western Peninsula.

Looking SW over Bishop Bay with Shoal Lake in the distance.

Over Skeet Island looking NNE.

Over Yellow Girl Point looking SE down Long Bay.

Aside from the huge stretches of open water, the key point is that all over the south end of the lake, the ice has separated from the shore. It’s still in enormous sheets, but it will start to break apart into pans soon.

Further north, where there are more islands and less vast stretches of water, the progress does not look as dramatic, but it’s following a similar path.

In case you missed it, regular commenter Stu Everett pointed out the other day that when current through the lake is slow in  winter, the ice forms to a more even thickness all over the lake, and sets up a situation where the big slow-moving parts of the lake are melting almost as fast as the places that usually have more current.

Before I forget, special thanks to all the people who sent in pictures or messages today.

The first of today’s satellite images is available.

Terra satellite’s MODIS image for April 10, 2021, in false colour.

Pity about the cloud cover [low altitude cumulus clouds at the left, made of water vapour, high level cirrus clouds with more ice at the right] but you can see the same trend photographed by Josh.

UPDATE: Aqua’s image is up.

Aqua satellite’s MODIS image from April 10, 2021, in false colour.

Still some cloud, but it’s moved a little, revealing different parts of the lake.

The big question is: have we reached the tipping point? Once the ice breaks up, the end is very near, because wind action becomes a major factor. I think we’re almost there.

So naturally, the forecast is for some cool temperatures. The Weather Network has revised the fourteen day forecast since I last talked about it, and it now shows Monday as the coolest, with temps hovering around the freezing point all day. After that, daytime highs may run a little below normal for the next two weeks, while overnight lows are kind of 50/50.

Will the ice go? Your guess is as good as mine.