January 2006 was the warmest in 100 years. Many lakes were open in late January!
Now we are finally getting good ice. Rain on Feb 17 was followed by very cold temperatures Feb 18 and 19 with only a little snow so there was nice ice. Unfortunately, there were also gale force winds which made for high wind chills. But we spent a few hours on the ice of Lake Charles in Dartmouth-Halifax on Sunday.
Late Wed afternoon (Feb 22), I checked out one of our local big lakes, Black River Lake. There was about 4 cms of powder snow on it but (mostly) smooth ice underneath. I skated about 8 km. Ice was over 20 cm thick. It is a bit tricky spotting the bumps, over-ice, slush spots etc. under the snow but I didn't fall once
