Cold, Warm, Cold

Last week started off with some single digit cold. Low single digit cold. It was 2°F Tuesday morning. It got warmer. The highs soared into the low 50s°F around midweek. At the end of the week, morning lows were back down to 2°F. There was some wind, but practically no precipitation. The lake level is going to be down come ice-out.

Most nights were clear and well lit by a moon that fulled out on Saturday.

The warm part of the week melted much of the half a foot of snow from the previous week. There were even cloud reflecting puddles!

The cold nights grew lake ice into the shore. The wind didn't help.

Piers that were not fully pulled from the water last fall suffered.

Boats left in the lake suffered more.

After a brief hiatus, eagles have been seen floating around the north end of Lucerne.

There has been no hiatus for the Bar's squirrels as they continue to empty bird feeders of seed, suet, and more snackrifices.

Not sure if this is a very late image of last year's milkweed or a very early picture of this year's crop.

Winter seems to be dying prematurely. Some mourned the passing of the cold, ice, and snow Wisconsinbly with old fashioneds and campfires.

Some of the campfires got kinda big.

The last task was to check the lake ice thickness. Over the course of last week, Lucerne gained almost an inch and a half of ice.

The ice is super clear, too.

I don't recall when the lake had over a foot of such transparent ice.

Most of the snow is gone. It increasingly looks like ice-out could be early this year. We'll get the Twenty Second Annual Lake Lucerne Ice-Out Contest posted this week. The earliest the ice has left the lake since 1993 was back in 2012. I'm not sure if we'll beat that March 21st date this year, but it could be close.

-Nemo's trying to convince local eagles that local squirrels would make a great snackrifice.

Cold, Warm, Cold

Feburary 19th through 25th, 2023