The ice-out date at Lake Shetek this spring will be one of the latest in modern history.
As of Tuesday morning, the region’s largest lake was still covered by a sheet of ice, although pools of open water along channels and in patches on top of the ice were becoming more evident.
Data posted on the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources lists 1962 as the last time Shetek had an ice-out date as late as April 24. An ice-out log kept by the late Ernie Surprenant, who had a Shetek cabin for many years, also lists April 24 as the 1962 ice-out date.
Surprenant recorded only one later Shetek ice out-date: April 26, 1972. However, on the DNR web site, April 16 is listed as the 1972 ice-out date, a reading that is credited to the late Shing Engerbretson.
Since 1960, the DNR has recorded 10 years of Shetek ice-out dates later than April 15. The year 2018 will be the eleventh.
The other post-April 15 ice-out dates, in addition to 1962, are: 1965-April 21; 1969-April 19; 1972-April 16; 1975-April 22; 1979-April 19; 1993-April 20; 1997-April 19; 2001-April 18; 2008-April 16; 2018-?
Shetek’s earliest ice-out date over the past 56 years occurred on March 8, 2000. The ice went out on Shetek prior to March 25 in 1966, 1973, 2012, 2015, and 2016.
For more on this article, see this week’s Headlight-Herald.