Ice was about 18" thick 30 minutes south of Bancroft on Saturday, which is typical for this time of year as the snow cover melts down but nights stay cold (forecast for that area was -18C on Saturday night). 

Looking at Lake of Two Rivers, there are a few warm days this week, but then lows of -11C or colder forecast for Friday/Saturday/Sunday which is still building ice. 

I'm thinking that we should start referring to March as the 'month of false hopes' if you are hoping for an early ice out, or the 'month of excessive fear' if you are worried that things are warming up too fast. 

Oh, I'll still throw out an ice out guess of May 3rd**, but it won't be until at least the first week of April that I'll start having any confidence in a prediction. 

**(statistically based on 3rd order polynomial regression of the Opeongo ice out dates since 1964 with a coefficient of correlation of 0.0956 ie: less than 10% confidence, but that is still about 2.5X higher confidence than a simple linear regression)
 

May 5th.  That's my sister's birthday lol.

Screw it. I'm getting my hopes up. April 12th because that's my sister's birthday.

Well, the average for the decade 2011 through 2020 was April 29th which was 3 days later than the April 26th average for the preceding decade from 2001 - 2010 and 4 days later than the decade from 1991 - 2000. In fact, it was in line with the decade from 1981 - 1990. 

A straight linear regression would predict April 26th (probably late on the 25th but not declared out until the 26th.) but that drops to under a 4% probability. 

All that fancy prediction stuff was just a matter of putting the Opeongo ice out dates in a spreadsheet and throwing a trendline on it to see what it looked liked. 

I've gone with my birthday in mid April before, but that never works for me.  

I'm just hoping we actually get an early May fishing trip in this year. It would be the first one in 3 years for me. 

Long range forecast at Canoe Lake looks pretty good right now. Daytime temps and even a few nights above zero for most of the next 14 days. Keeping my fingers crossed this isn’t a head fake and that April doesn’t start with a blizzard. (Although now that I’ve gone and jinxed it by writing this it’s pretty much guaranteed to happen).

Blue mountain is making snow right now in Barrie. Maybe they know something we don’t.

Not that it matters much right now in terms of plans, but anyone up in or near the Park have an update on how the ice is going?

   i strongly believe that ice out is a mute point,, things are bad and will not get better unless the guy? in ottawa grows a spine and closes down all air ports that have international flights arriving!!! a  large loop hole eh?
   following the science will re-enforce  my opinion,, this is not rocket surgery,,

Last edited by swedish pimple (4/10/2021 7:37 am)