Lake Detroit Officially Ices Over

DETROIT LAKES (KDLM) – Lake Detroit is officially iced over.

Lake Detroit iced over, Saturday evening, November 19 with Little Detroit mostly frozen a few days earlier.

Dick Hecock with the Lake Detroiters says November 19 happens to be the average date of ice-over on Lake Detroit over the last 112 years, “however, this year’s date is about 5 days earlier than the average ice-up for the last 30 years (1993-2022).”

In four of the previous 10 years the lake has frozen earlier than this year. The earliest was November 11, 2019. In the same ten year period ice-in has occurred twice in December, in 2016 and 2017.

Detroit swimmers and boaters enjoyed 199 ice-free days this year. However, owing to the relatively late (May 3rd) ice-out, 2022’s open water was 2 weeks shorter than the long-term average, and almost 3 weeks less than the the average of the last 30 years. The open water season was two months longer (256 days) in 2016.

The 30-year average of Detroit’s ice-cover durations (144 days) would put ice-out April 13.