Earliest ice-out
March 17
2024
Record-early melt
Historical Data · 1980 – 2025
46 years of ice, recorded by hand.
Since 1980, members of the association have logged the date the ice left Pickerel each spring and the date it re-formed each fall. It is one of the longest continuously-kept citizen-science ice phenology records in Otter Tail County — kept not by a university, but by neighbors.
Four dates that frame five decades
Latest ice-out
May 11
2013
Longest ice season on record
Earliest ice-in
November 3
2014
Fastest freeze on record
Latest ice-in
December 30
2023
Latest freeze on record
46 seasons documented · 1980 – 2025 · Source: PLIA annual newsletters
The full chart
An interactive chart arrives when the paper record is verified.
Every ice-out and ice-in date from 1980 to 2025 is being transcribed from the PLIA newsletter archive so each value can be cross-referenced against the newsletter of record before publication. When the board signs off on the transcription, this page will render the full 46-year record as an interactive chart, with downloadable CSV for researchers.
Publishing unverified numbers on a lake record that matters would do the opposite of the work we’re here to do. So we wait until it’s right.
Have a historical photograph of a Pickerel ice-out or a dated journal entry we should add?