Man searches for Whitefish Lake freeze, thaw history
From the window of his home above Whitefish Lake’s City Beach, Scott Wurster has been keeping an eye on the winter ice as it slowly hardens to form solid layer.
After years of observing this annual event, he became curious. He wanted to know why the lake freezes over one year, but then might not the next. He wanted to know if the freeze and thaw dates for the lake have changed over the years.
“Whitefish Lake is a unique little gem,” Wurster said. “My gut tells me this is important information and we should be looking at what it means.”
Whitefish Lake covers 5.22 square miles and has an average depth of 109 feet.
Wurster set out to gather information and talk to scientists to see if he could find any answers. His goal was to write a magazine article based off his research.
Through the Pilot archives, he was able to find published charts listing dates for freeze in and out from 1914 to 1962. There were four winters during that time period when the lake is listed as having not frozen — 1933-34, 1940-41, 1952-53 and 1960-61. During the 2012-13 winter the lake also remained largely unfrozen.
Exactly what it means when the lake was listed as not frozen is unclear. Some people might consider the lake not to be frozen as it having completely open water. Others might consider the lake to not be frozen if the center of the lake remains open.
While dates for lake freezing only go until 1962, it appears as though the lake historically has frozen in December or January. The lake water most often opened up in April.
Wurster hit a stumbling block in his research trying to locate data after 1963 and present day information. He contacted numerous prominent scientists hoping that someone had been collecting freeze data for Whitefish Lake. What he found was that while many of them were interested in obtaining that type of information, they hadn’t been able to track it themselves.
“There’s a huge gap in information,” he said. “There’s a number of people that would like to have that baseline information.”
Ultimately, Wurster is hoping that someone may have kept track of that information through personal observations. He points to similar seasonal patterns that occur in nature, such as bird migration, that have for years been tracked by citizen scientists.
“None of these scientists are tracking this,” Wurster said. “That’s where citizen science comes in — what they’ve noticed that might show a different pattern.”
Although the Whitefish Lake Institute has spent nearly a decade studying Whitefish Lake and area watersheds, data on the freeze dates of the lake isn’t something it has either.
Whitefish Lake Institute director Mike Koopal said that while many factors can effect Whitefish Lake, if an ice-free scenario becomes the norm, that could increase the algal production in the lake.
“In Whitefish Lake, the historically typical scenario of ice cover during the winter months limits algal production,” Koopal said. “This is primarily due to snow accumulation on top of the ice which limits sunlight penetration needed for photosynthesis.”
While that could effect the entire food web in the lake, it’s hard to predict what it would mean for species like fish, he noted.
Ice typically forms on the lake with very cold and windless conditions, Koopal said. He notes that waves caused by wind will break newly formed ice as it expands out from the shoreline.
The Whitefish Lake Institute has agreed to accept information people might have about the dates of freeze-in and freeze-out for the lake. Contact them at 862-4327.