May 10, 2020: Ice Free

With temperatures below freezing last night and most of this morning, I wasn’t sure if it was safe to say all the ice is gone. The largest patch remaining was on Bigstone Bay, which was going fast on May 8th.  My sources there tell me it vanished yesterday.

So I’m calling Lake of the Woods ice-free as of May 9th this year.

Brick Graph

On the Brick Graph, 2020 falls near the middle of the pack. That’s kind of disappointing for a spring that had relatively thin ice.

You can click on the graphs to see them full-screen.

The “Jenga” or Pancake Graph tracks the thaw from the Inflection Date (when the mean daily temperature rose above freezing on a lasting basis) to the day Lake of the Woods is ice-free. Years are stacked chronologically, with the most recent year at the top. The 2020 final version looks like this:

Pancake Graph

The thaw went fast after the air temperature rose above freezing. It’s probably safe to assume that a lot of the ice was melted from below, by the lake water, before air temperature had a go. This graph doesn’t attempt to factor that in, so it shows this year’s seventeen days as the most rapid thaw in recent years, after getting off to a late start.

The more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know enough. There are so many factors at work: ice thickness, snow cover, air temperature, sunshine, wind, rain, water levels and current. One year, my predicted date will be correct. And you know what? It won’t be from correctly calculating the effect of all those things. It’ll be a fluke.

Speaking of things I’m unqualified to comment on, I had some people ask if I know anything about when the Canada-USA border might open. Well, no, I don’t.

But I can certainly see that it doesn’t make sense let Americans flow freely into the country while we’re still trying to keep Canadians separated from one another to reduce the risk of exposure.

The two countries have chosen very different strategies, and they can’t really be melded. While Canadians are being paid to sit tight, and have the assurance of medical coverage whether they work or not, the US has leaned towards sending people back to work, even going so far as to open places like meat-processing plants despite high rates of infection.

It’s a safe bet that the rate of exposure is much higher in the US than here. It certainly is in places like New York. Until recently, only sick people were getting tested, but we need to know how widespread the infection is in the general populations of both countries.

If the US approaches “herd immunity” numbers while exposure in Canada is still relatively rare, opening the border would cause a huge outbreak here.

So I think it might have to wait a while, and it’s quite likely going to cause problems of one kind or another.

 

 

May 8, 2020: Sentinel

I often post satellite images from the MODIS cameras on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites. The University of Wisconsin at Madison posts fresh images every day, and the highest available resolution is 250 metres to a pixel. That means you can see features as small as Kenora’s Round Lake, or Gun Club Island, but they’re just dots.

Today, Hilary Dugan, a limnologist from Madison, sent me a satellite picture of Lake of the Woods taken yesterday by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellite. It’s at much higher resolution: 10 metres to a pixel. You can see roads.

Naturally, I was eager to upload this image to Ice Patrol, but I cannot: it’s too big! It’s about forty times the size of my average photo. It would take all night to upload, and it would pretty much wipe out my remaining storage space at WordPress. So I can’t show you the whole lake at maximum detail. But I can show you the bit with ice remaining on it.

You should absolutely click on this picture to see it full-screen, and then click again to zoom it to the full resolution.

The last two patches of ice on Lake of the Woods.

At the top right corner of the frame is Northern Harbour. The ice on Bigstone Bay is clearly visible between Heenan Point on the mainland and Needle Point on Hay Island. You can even see  remnants of the ice roads. The pale blotches over and around Sultana Island are clouds. I’m less sure of the pale patch south of Copper Island. I’m leaning towards cloud for that one.

At the bottom of the picture, the large island is Ferrier. The remaining patch of ice is within a triangle tipped by Robertson Island to the north west, Whiteout Island to the south west, and Craig Island to the east. This is the same patch of ice identified by Josh Broten a few days ago. At that time, he described it as being near Brittania Island, Cintiss Island and Gill Island, so it’s a lot smaller now.

Aside from the impracticality due to the size of the images this satellite produces, there’s another disadvantage: the Sentinel system doesn’t attempt to image Lake of the Woods very often. Subtract the cloudy days, and several weeks can go by without a picture. The timing on this one was great, but Sentinel images aren’t going to be a regular feature on Satellite Saturdays.

Hilary sent me a reduced image that shows the whole lake, but at a more manageable file size. It’s not as detailed as the section above, but you can see everything including Shoal Lake. Thanks, Hilary.

Lake of the Woods, May 7, 2020.

Speaking of Shoal Lake, the ice patch there is much larger than anything on Lake of the Woods, and will last a few days longer. This has happened every spring I can remember, except last year, when Shoal Lake cleared a few days before LotW.

On another topic, Peg from Texas wrote to ask how we’re making out with the pandemic, and what it’s like here. First off, the best place I’ve found to get updates is KenoraOnline’s COVID-19 Info page. It covers topics as local as what’s going on at the hospital (elective surgery might resume in a while), ranging up to announcements from Ontario’s Premier, Doug Ford. Recently, he rejected requests that the province phase in re-opening on a region-by-region basis.

I’ll add some first-hand perspective that might be hard to pick out of the official news.

Restaurants and Bars: Unlike Manitoba, restaurants are not open, not even patios.  SOME restaurants are offering delivery or take-out, and of those, some are only doing it for limited hours, or a few days a week. Bars and lounges are closed. Non-essential businesses are closed.

Groceries: Keewatin Place was closed last time I checked. Correction: Keewatin Place is taking orders through their website and offering curbside pick-up. Safeway, No-Frills, the Wholesale Club, Wal-Mart, and the LCBO are still restricting the number of customers in the store: you have to line up outside to get in. You’re supposed to send one shopper for family, so there are very few children in the stores. One-way arrows assist physical distancing by limiting the number of people you meet coming the other way. Masks are fairly common, but I wouldn’t say they’re in the majority. The temporary arrows at Safeway and Wal-Mart have been replaced my more permanent ones, so I think they’re going to be staying. On the other hand, some of the barricades that turned the stores into a maze have been removed, allowing a little more freedom of movement.

Until now, hardware stores have not been open, but you could phone in an order, pay in advance and wait outside to pick it up. That may change soon. To quote from a news item about easing Ontario’s restrictions on KenoraOnline,  “Hardware stores and safety supply stores will be permitted to open for in-store payment and purchases as soon as Saturday, May 9. On Monday, May 11 retail stores with a street entrance can begin offering curbside pickup and delivery…”

Of course, it may take some time to get everything ready and up to the required standards.

Greenhouses can open, but Debbie’s Greenhouse is not open yet. According to their website, they’ll open when they’re ready to do it safely, and an announcement about the timing of that could come on Monday, May 11th.

I can’t make this a more comprehensive list, because I haven’t been out much. Hopefully, it will give an idea.

May 7, 2020: Bigstone Bay

I’m going to start with two pictures that are a couple of days old, and then show how things are changing. Bigstone Bay is one of the last places on Lake of the Woods to have ice. I’m not sure why, but this is true year after year. Perhaps there’s not much current.

You can click on the pictures to see them full-screen. That version can be zoomed.

Except the satellite image. Kenora’s Round Lake is about the smallest thing the MODIS cameras can show you, and trying to zoom in will just make it worse.

The first two pictures are from Al Smith, operator of Smith Camps on Thunder Bay.

Looking west from Heenan Point.  Sultana Island on the right, Scotty Island on left.

Still a good extent of ice in this picture from sunset on Tuesday evening.

Looking east from Smith Camps on Thunder Bay towards Eagle Pass.

Eagle pass is the water route around the east end of Hay Island. Al says it looks to be ice free from Route Bay through to Moore Bay.

Now some drone photographs from today, with thanks to Michael Tomashowski.

This picture facing West shows Bigstone Bay with Heenan Point poking out into the ice.

Looking north east at Longbow Lake.

The west end of Longbow looks open, but zoom in to get a better look at the ice in the more distant east half of the lake.

Michael has operated a DJI Mavic Pro since 2017. Thanks, Michael.

NASA’s Terra Satellite got a clear view of Lake of the Woods today. Here’s the false-colour image.

The ice on Shoal Lake is still visible from space.

The bright blue patch at the left is ice on Shoal Lake; it’s shrinking day by day. Less easy to spot is the ice on Bigstone. Near the north end of Lake of the Woods, look for a sizeable island shaped like a battered battle-axe, chopping downward: that’s Hay Island. Just north of it, a dim patch of blue is the thin ice remaining on Bigstone. Longbow Lake is just north of that, but the ice there is not visible to the satellite’s camera. Too thin and waterlogged, I expect. If there’s any ice remaining south of the Barrier Islands, I can’t see it.

NOTES:

Lake of the Woods Ice Patrol has seen a sharp reduction in web visitors this spring, to about half of recent years. Fair enough. Many visitors won’t be able to come in the early part of spring. Also, my being laid off from my flying job for three months (because of the pandemic) has meant that there have been far fewer aerial photographs this year, and that some areas have had much less coverage. Sorry about that.

But there have been pluses: I’ve had a lot more guest contributors this year. Many have taken the time to email me photographs to share with you. Some have made multiple flights in their small planes, and for the first time, I’ve been able to feature drone photography.

Despite the problems, it’s been gratifying to be able to do this blog while grounded. I never dreamed I’d get this much help. Thank you all.

 

May 5, 2020: Remnants

We’re down to the last remnants of ice on Lake of the Woods now.

John Lunny sent this “before and after” pair of pictures taken from Lunny’s Island today as the ice cover changed dramatically. What a difference a day makes!

You can click on these pictures to see them full-screen.

The view is east down Bigstone Bay, with Kipling Island near the middle of the picture.

This morning

Late this afternoon

Fascinating to see the ice go dark in a matter of hours. John says the thermometer at his camp went as high as 22ºC this afternoon, although the official temperature at the Kenora airport never got higher than 14ºC.

An hour later, I got these pictures from Ted Main, also of Bigstone Bay, but from a different angle.

Kipling Island again, but looking west

The ice is totally candled.

Looking towards Northern Harbour from Heenan Point

 

Since we had mostly sunny weather today, I was hoping the satellite images would be clear. I was wondering about ice south of the Barrier Islands. Terra’s view was half obscured by cloud, but Aqua managed a mostly clear view.

The image is only 640 pixels square, but if you click on it, you’ll see a version overlaid  with tags for Kenora, Bigstone Bay, the Barrier Islands, and Shoal Lake.

Lake of the Woods, May 5, 2020. MODIS camera on NASA’s Aqua satellite. False-colour image.

The wispy blue is high cloud. Ice on the lake, specifically on Shoal Lake, and on Lake of the Woods south of the Barrier Islands, is a little more defined. Note that the ice is a very dark blue, indicating it is very thin and weak.

It will be gone soon.

Just before I uploaded this post, I got a couple of pictures from Matthew Belair. The Belairs have a place on Queer Island, not far from that ice by the Barrier Islands.

These are drone photos, taken this evening.

Looking east into Andrew Bay with the east end of Queer Island in the foreground.

No ice this way. But wait, there’s more.

Looking south at French Narrows. That’s the Eastern Peninsula at the left and East Allie Island at the right. 

These pictures aren’t very zoomable, but in the upper right corner, there’s ice down around Robertson Island.

So thanks to all of today’s contributors: John Lunny, Ted Main, and Matthew Belair.

Starting Wednesday night, the Weather Network says we may see a string of cold nights, with overnight lows of -5ºC for three nights in a row. I didn’t like that forecast, so I went to see what Environment Canada had to say… [Grits teeth] It’s worse! They’re saying minus seven on Thursday night. Really? It’s May. Would an afternoon on the deck be too much to ask?

Oh, well. Happy Cinco de Mayo!

May 4, 2020: What’s Left?

It’s no longer a question of what’s melting, it’s now about what’s still frozen.

The satellites were stymied by cloud today, and I wanted to know what’s going on at Bigstone Bay, so I texted a friend. John Sweeney sent me this pretty picture.

Before you jump to the conclusion that Bigstone is completely clear, you should click on the picture, and zoom in on the full-screen version. There’s a big pan of ice at the left. John was standing on the mainland, on the point between Route Bay and Storm Bay, and looking south across Bigstone Bay at Hay Island. 

If I understand John’s explanation, the ice is in or around Hay Island’s East Bay.

Here’s a second picture looking a little more to the left. I cropped it to make it easier to look at the ice. You’ll probably still want to zoom in.

You might be wondering what’s special about Bigstone Bay. I pay attention to it because it’s one of the areas on Lake of the Woods that thaws late. I expect there’s also ice south of the Barrier Islands, but I don’t know how much.

If it all melts in the next few days, this will be the quickest thaw* on our charts, even though it’s one of the later ones.

*using the specific definition that the thaw commences on the inflection date [the date when the mean daily temperature goes consistently above freezing] and ends the day the lake is 100% ice-free.

May 3, 2020: Tipping Point

Yes it snowed last night. Not a lot, but I had to scrape the car windows.

Yesterday, I talked about the trade-off between strong winds and low temperatures. When the lake is ice-covered, wind doesn’t make a lot of difference, so the near-freezing temperatures would win out. But once the lake is about one third open, wind can push the ice around and break it up. I wasn’t sure how this would play out while conditions were so cold, but the wind won.

My first clue was a comment from Minnie, who wrote to say she saw nothing but open water from the south shore. She was down by Morris Point and Warroad. Now you can’t see all that far from the shore, but Josh Broten takes his Cub up to ten thousand feet to get pictures from the US side, and from there, you can see a long way. Here’s what he got this afternoon.

You can click on these pictures to see a full-screen, zoomable version.

Big Traverse

So Minnie was right on. Not a scrap of ice to be seen on the south end of the lake.

Moose Lake

Moose Lake Provincial Park (middle distance) and Birch Point (foreground) are in the Manitoba corner of Lake of the Woods. No ice here, either.

Looking north east from the Northwest Angle

Clipper Island is at the lower left of this shot, Cochrane Island is almost touching the left edge, and Big Narrows is in the distance. That far-off ice is up towards Wiley Point, somewhere around Cintiss Island

Looking northeast  from over Falcon Island.

Beyond Falcon Island lies French Portage Narrows. At the left of the frame, near the wing strut, is Big Narrows. That’s the same patch of ice in the far distance.

 

Shoal Lake

I love this shot of Shoal Lake. There’s still a giant patch of white ice around Dominique and Stevens Islands, but the lake looks to be over half open, not just on the south shore, but also in the northern parts near the Trans-Canada highway.

In case you were wondering, it takes a long time to climb to ten thousand feet in a Cub. Thanks, Josh.

The Aqua and Terra satellites didn’t get a clear look at Lake of the Woods today, but skies cleared enough this afternoon for Aqua to get a partial view.

2020 False colour image from May 3rd. MODIS camera on NASA’s Aqua satellite.

What we can see is all that open water at the south end, and the patch of ice on Shoal Lake at the left. Subtle, but visible, is ice near Hay Island. The part of the lake south of the Barrier Islands is very hard to see. I think there’s some ice there.

Compare this to the clear and sharp image from April 30th.

2020 False colour image from April 30th. MODIS camera on NASA’s Aqua satellite.

Same satellite, same camera, just three days ago!

That’s why this post is titled Tipping Point. Once the ice is more than half gone, it goes suddenly.

However, if it seems cool to you for May, it is. A normal high this time of year is about 15ºC, and an average overnight low would be about 3ºC. Forecast temperatures continue to run cooler than that, with this week getting no warmer than 10ºC and perhaps only reaching  4º on Thursday. Overnight lows could dip as low as -4ºC.

Will we be able to melt the lake with those kinds of temperatures? Yes. But I’m not sure how rapidly. With normal temperatures, I’d expect the remaining ice to be gone in a couple of days, which would put us in the early May bracket, which is pretty common. With this forecast, I’m less sure, but I think we’re on track to do better than the May 14th thaw that Sean and I both predicted just a week ago.

We might be ice free by next weekend. Which is forecast to be cold, by the way. So far, the Weather Network is calling for highs of just six or seven next weekend.

And if that’s not enough to discourage you, remember that Ontario is not moving to lift pandemic restrictions as fast as Manitoba or Quebec, and Premier Doug Ford is flat-out asking out-of-province visitors to stay home. Here’s a link to Kenora Online‘s page with that story.

 

May 2, 2020: Satellite Saturday Plus

It’s cold again, but we have a strong wind. With the lake partly open, windy conditions have the potential to destroy ice wholesale, but this spring is being weird. There’s snow in the forecast tonight, and near-freezing overnight lows forecast for half the week. To be honest, I don’t know what to make of it.

Let’s do the satellite thing to try and get some perspective. An ‘overview’ if you will.

It’s been cloudy, so I can’t use images from May 2nd or even May 1st; the most recent good pictures were from April 30th.  My first thought was to compare those to April 30th of last year, but no such luck; it was cloudy at the end of April last year. Moving back another year to April 30th of 2018? Score! Clear shots. Here’s why it makes sense to compare this year to that one. 2018, 2019 and 2020 were late starting thaws in cold spring weather. The ice cleared fairly rapidly in both 2018 and 2019, with the lake going ice-free on May 14th both years. This year we got an even later start, courtesy of some nasty cold April weather, but given that the ice was not that thick, Sean and I both thought we could catch up and completely thaw the lake by about the 14th.

These are false-colour images: the brighter the blue, the thicker the ice, and open water is black. These pictures are not zoomable: this is all the resolution there is.

However, if you click on the top picture, you’ll see an archive image with some landmarks labelled to help you get oriented. Pay no attention to the ice cover in that file photo.

Okay, let’s look at the pictures:

2018 False-colour image from April 30th. MODIS camera on NASA’s Terra satellite.

2020 False colour image from April 30th. MODIS camera on NASA’s Aqua satellite.

Well, huh. Aside from the fact that this year’s image is sharper (they vary) it’s pretty clear that we have less ice this year than two years ago on the same date.

It looks as if large parts of cottage country have open water already, and once we reach this stage, the rest of the lake is not usually far behind.

If we had a decent weather forecast, I’d be confident that the lake was going to be ice-free earlier than the 14th. However, we have several days of unseasonably cold temperatures coming up. I just don’t know.

I haven’t been able to cover the Sioux Narrows area this year. Ordinarily, I’d make a little detour on the way home from Dryden now and then, but the pandemic has grounded me this spring, so I couldn’t do that.

I was happy to receive this picture from Tony Lord this evening.

Regina Bay – Sioux Narrows. Taken just south of Crystal Harbour and looking East. The island in the foreground is Kennard Island.

Tony says: Ice at our dock was up to 8” thick in places but breaking up on Thursday morning with sections of open water. By Friday afternoon the majority of the bay that we can see is open except a stretch immediately North (left) of Kennard Island.

Thanks, Tony.

Okay, now we have to talk about the pandemic restrictions. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has announced that some businesses will be able to open soon, with restrictions.

For instance, marinas will  be allowed to put boats in the water. BUT! That doesn’t mean you can go boating. The marinas aren’t going to be open to the public, and the boats have to stay tied to a dock. They’re just being allowed to catch up on a backlog of launching boats. Actually letting people take their boat will have to wait.

Here’s a link to the full Kenora Online article on this story.