Star Tribune
Lake Minnetonka’s 1878 record for earliest ice-out date stands
In a year in which weather records have been falling left and right, a longstanding one on Lake Minnetonka remained on the books.
Officials from the nonprofit Freshwater and the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office Water Patrol had hoped to declare the metro area’s largest lake ice free Monday, which would have tied the record for the earliest ice-out date of March 11, 1878.
The patrol’s Big Lake Assault boat powered its way across large expanses of open water during a reconnaissance mission Monday afternoon but met its match at Brown’s Bay, north of Big Island, and was forced to turn back.
“We would stop dead in our tracks,” said deputy Ryan Greeney, who was piloting the vessel.
“Pretty thick out here,” said co-pilot Chad VanHeel, as he used a metal pole to poke at the 3 to 6 inches of solid ice that still covered Brown’s Bay and Wayzata Bay.
The Twin Cities has set nine high temperature records since Jan. 1 at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, including Monday’s 67-degree temperature. But not even all that warmth could melt a record that has stood 146 years.
Ice-out on Lake Minnetonka is “is a highly anticipated event,” said Freshwater spokesman Chris O’Brien, who joined the water patrol for Monday’s excursion. “It’s exciting to possibly be a record.”
But it was not to be. And it may be a few more days before the sprawling lake is completely thawed.
Ice-out is observed when a boat is able to safely navigate from any shore to any other shore, through any channel and around any island, according to O’Brien, which in concert with the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office has been charting the annual spring tradition for decades.
None of that seemed to matter to Adam Christensen of Shakopee. He spent part of the afternoon fishing for crappies on Harrison Bay and Black Lake where there was open water, marking the first time he’d ever put his boat in Lake Minnetonka in March.
“I was more worried about getting a sunburn,” he joked. Asked if this might be a long boating season, “I’ll take it,” he said.
In a typical winter, Lake Minnetonka would hold onto its ice cover until April 13, the average ice-out date based on records dating to 1855. Last year it happened on April 19. The latest was May 5, 2018, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
Several factors had climatologists and history buffs rooting for a once-in-a-lifetime thaw. The iconic lake didn’t freeze over until Jan. 13, the latest that had ever happened, and ice never got as deep as usual.
“When you have the warmest winter on record, this is what happens,” said Pete Boulay of the state’s Climatology Office. “This is just like the winter of 1877-78. We never thought the record would be broken.”
Every lake in the state froze over but some didn’t for very long, Boulay said.
Lake Okamanpeedan is believed to have been the first in the state to thaw. The lake on the Iowa border in Martin County set a record when it opened up on Feb. 22, and records on other lakes have followed.
The DNR posts color-coded maps on its website with dots showing dates when lakes become ice-free. As of Monday, the agency had scores of lakes with new early ice-out dates, including White Bear Lake last Friday, Upper Prior Lake on March 3, Clear Lake near Waseca on March 1, Crystal Lake northeast of Faribault on Feb. 26 and Long Lake in Stillwater on Feb. 28.
“We are breaking records,” Boulay said. “We are adding a lot more dots.”
In normal winters, lake levels would be on their way up as the snow melts. But this year the metro area has seen only 14.3 inches of snow, the second least on record behind only the 14.2 inches that fell in 1930. Though there is still time to add to that.
The Twin Cities has also seen only 0.78 inches of precipitation since the first of the year. That is concerning to Boulay.
“A lot of lakes get a bump in the spring, but this year they did not,” he said. “They are right there at the levels at which they froze.”
O’Brien and patrol deputies will continue to check conditions this week to call “ice out.”.
Despite no record, “this is one to remember. We have never had this in our lifetime,” Boulay said.
Two men are dead and one woman was injured in a shooting at a homeless encampment in south Minneapolis on Sunday afternoon, police said. It was the second shooting at a Minneapolis encampment this weekend.
At about 2:20 p.m. Sunday, police responded to a reported shooting in the 4400 block of Snelling Avenue near the railroad tracks at the small encampment between Snelling and Hiawatha avenues. At the scene, officers found two men with fatal gunshot wounds, said Sgt. Garrett Parten Minneapolis Police spokesman. Responders rendered aid, but both men died at the scene.
A woman was found at the scene with life-threatening injuries and was taken to a local hospital where she was being treated Sunday night, he said. Police have yet to say whether the three were living at the encampment.
Officers detained three people, who Parten said have since been released after police found they were not believed to be involved in the shooting. No suspects had been identified as of 6:30 p.m. Sunday.
The shooting is the second at a southside homeless encampment this weekend. One man died and two were critically injured early Saturday at an encampment shooting near E. 21st Street and 15th Avenue S. On Sunday, the man was identified as Deven Leonard Caston, 31, according to the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office.
“We don’t know if there’s a connection between this homeless encampment shooting and the one that occurred yesterday,” Parten said on Sunday. “That is a consideration of the investigation. We can’t rule it out.”
Ward 12 Council Member Aurin Chowdhury, who represents the area and lives nearby, was at the site of the shooting Sunday afternoon. She said officials need information about what happened to better understand how to address situations like this long-term.
“This is an absolute tragedy, and this type of violence should never occur within our city,” she said. “It really makes me think about how we need to look at this more systemically and not just take a whack-a-mole approach and expect the problem to go away.
During Sunday’s Twitch stream, Walz and Ocasio-Cortez played Madden while discussing making homebuying more accessible, building affordable housing, eliminating student loan debt and raising the federal minimum wage.
After the match, Walz showed off his Sega skills in a round of “Crazy Taxi,” the Y2K-era racing game where gamers play as a taxi driver picking up passengers and taking them to their destination for cash.
Walz called himself a “first-generation gamer” and recalled playing “Crazy Taxi” when he bought a Sega Dreamcast. He also mentioned the Minnesota Star Tribune’s coverage of how his old game console was sold and ended up with a Plymouth resident, who still has it.
Afterward, Walz and Ocasio-Cortez watched a short clip of Trump denying on Rogan’s podcast that he lost the 2020 presidential election. Democrat Joe Biden won that year.
Ocasio-Cortez during the livestream also showed viewers her farm on the cozy, indie game Stardew Valley. Walz said the game reminded him of Minnesota: “You’ve got mining,” he said. “You’ve got agriculture. You’ve got snow.”
Before Walz headed out to a rally in Nevada, he pleaded with viewers to vote. More than 12,000 viewers tuned into the livestream on Ocasio-Cortez’s Twitch channel. More watched from Harris’ channel.
”Hey guys, they’re now scrambling and trying to call us Nazis and fascists,” said Alina Habba, one of Trump’s attorneys, who draped a sparkly ”MAGA” jacket over the lectern as she spoke. ”And you know what they’re claiming, guys? It’s very scary. They’re claiming we’re going to go after them and try and put them in jail. Well, ain’t that rich?”
Declared Hogan in his characteristic raspy growl: ”I don’t see no stinkin’ Nazis in here.”
Trump has denounced the four criminal indictments brought against him as politically motivated. He has ramped up his denunciations in recent weeks of ”enemies from within,” naming domestic political rivals, and suggested he would use the military to go after them. Harris, in turn, has called Trump a ”fascist.”
The arena was full hours before Trump was scheduled to speak. Outside the arena, the sidewalks were overflowing with Trump supporters in red ”Make America Great Again” hats. There was a heavy security presence. Streets were blocked off and access to Penn Station was restricted.
In the crowd was Philip D’Agostino, a longtime Trump backer from Queens, the borough where Trump grew up. The 64-year-old said it was appropriate for Trump to be speaking at a place bills itself as ”the world’s most famous arena.”
”It just goes to show ya that he has a bigger following of any man that has ever lived,” D’Agostino said.
