Date: 04/07/2017

Number: 1

"April 7 is the 2017 ice-free date for Detroit Lake.

This is about 12 days earlier than the long-term average, according to Dick Hecock, advisor to the Pelican River Watershed District. Over the 125 years of records, ice-outs occur this early about 10 percent of the time, but of the 10 times it has been earlier, four have occurred since 2000.

The earliest ice-free date is March 23; last year the lake was ice-free on March 29. This year we saw an unusual ice-out period—all of Little Detroit's ice and much of the north half of Big Detroit's ice disappeared much earlier in the week."

Detroit Lakes, MN

Latitude: 46.8 Longitude: -95.8

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