Warm temperatures, rain, strong winds hastening Ice-Out

LACONIA — Ice-Out is fast approaching and it could very well occur before the week is out.

Warm temperatures, rain, and Monday’s heavy winds have combined to hasten Ice-Out, an iconic event that serves as the unofficial beginning of the boating season.

One week ago pilots at Emerson Aviation, who regularly fly over Lake Winnipesaukee, were forecasting it could take two to 2½ weeks before Ice-Out would happen, defined as when the MS Mount Washington excursion boat can get to all its ports around the state’s largest lake.

“It will be a unique Ice-Out,” Brad Bechard, a line service technician at Emerson Aviation, said Tuesday. “It’s not going to be gradual like most years.”

By Saturday the Broads — the widest part of Lake Winnipesaukee — was free of ice.

On Tuesday the ice had gone out of Alton Bay and Meredith Bay, Bechard said. But while Monday’s strong winds opened more of the lake, it also pushed some sheets of ice closer to shore, including around Weirs Bay, and some peninsulas around the lake, Bechard noted.

He said that now that it appears that Ice-Out is just a few days away, pilots will be going up every day to monitor conditions.