Ice-Out still a ways off

GILFORD — Ice-Out on Lake Winnipesaukee is probably still two or three weeks away. But the latest stretch of warmer temperatures, combined with longer periods of daylight, are already resulting in noticeable changes in ice conditions.

“The lake is still pretty well covered,” Brad Bechard, a line service technician with Emerson Aviation at the Laconia Municipal Airport, said Wednesday.

He said that based on the observations made by Emerson’s pilots ice-out is not expected to occur for “another two, 2½, or three weeks.”

But the ice conditions are changing fast, he noted. In some areas of the state’s largest lake the thickness of the ice has decreased from 16 inches to 12 inches in just one week. Also, there are cracks in the ice which appear during the day, but then freeze up at night, only to thaw when daylight returns.

Ice-out is defined as when the MS Mount Washington excursion vessel can safely navitate to its five ports of call on the lake — Weirs Beach, Meredith, Center Harbor, Wolfeboro, and Alton Bay.

The earliest Ice-Out to occur since records started being kept in 1887 was March 18 in 2016, while the latest was on May 12 in 1888. Ice-Out has occurred earlier on average in the last two decades of the 20th century and the first of the 21st century than in preceding decades.