Vermonters may want to keep an eye on melting ice in the coming days and weeks, both to help out the state and potentially win thousands of dollars in private contests. Happy spring indeed.
The Department of Environmental Conservation is encouraging people to report ice-out dates — the day when a Vermont lake or pond officially loses ice from shore to shore in the spring. The information will help to track effects of climate change, according to Mark Mitchell, a limnologist with the department.
“By reporting ice-out dates, Vermonters can help us better understand how climate change impacts our lakes and ponds. Using long-term records of lake ice, our scientists can learn about and track statewide and regional climate trends,” John Beling, the department’s commissioner, said in a statement.
The department has an online form where people can record when they spot ice-outs around the state.
Long before the form was online, ice-outs have been recorded each year on several Vermont lakes and ponds — and with money on the line.
In the 1980s, a common topic of conservation around Joe’s Pond in West Danville was, “So, when do you think the ice is going to melt?” In 1987, Jules Chatot, fueled by this common question and a bit of cabin fever, decided to make a game out of it.
Chatot started keeping guesses in a notebook, charging $1 per guess for the date when a homemade contraption would fall through the ice, proving spring was on its way.
Since the first ice-out wager in 1987, locals have set up the same contraption — involving a cinder block and time clock — every year, albeit with different parts each year, according to Michelle Walker with the Joe’s Pond Association.
The block is hooked up to an electric source on shore, so when the block falls, the clock unplugs and everyone knows the time of ice-out on the pond, according to Walker.
When the block falls through the ice, the clock stops, and whoever has wagered $1 closest to the time gets half the total proceeds. Last year, the association had nearly 13,500 entrants from all over the world, according to Walker.
People have until Saturday to wager their $1 bets on the Joe’s Pond Ice Out date on the association’s website. Half the money goes to the person with the closest guess — last year, three people guessed within 4 minutes of the actual time — and the other half goes to the Joe’s Pond Association for water activities and water quality maintenance, according to Walker.
“Everyone works really hard to maintain the quality of water here so everyone can enjoy it, and this challenge is a good way to support that,” Walker said.
It’s too late to bet in the Lake Iroquois ice-out challenge in Hinesburg; the deadline was March 1. Ice tends to melt earlier in Hinesburg than in the Northeast Kingdom. Last year, ice-out happened on March 27, according to the Lake Iroquois Association website. The earliest ice-out was March 9, 2000, while the latest was April 27, 2007, according to the association’s website.
Meanwhile, the earliest ice-out on Joe’s Pond was April 5, 2010, but in some years the clock didn’t stop until mid-May, according to the association’s records.
Like Joe’s Pond, tickets were $1 at Lake Iroquois, and proceeds are split between the winning guesser and the lake’s Greeter and Boat Wash program, according to the website. Lake Iroquois employs a similar cinder block and clock contraption to determine the official ice-out time.
Last year, the association drew about 1,200 guesses, according to Shannon Kelly, president of the Lake Iroquois Association.
Overall, ice-out is happening earlier and earlier, so people looking to win cash from ice-out challenges may have to move up their guesses. A 2022 report from the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation details trends of earlier thawing, trends that can bring adverse impacts to aquatic ecosystems.
“On average, ice-out is occurring earlier by 1.5 days each decade for the 15 lakes in Vermont where we have at least 20 years of consistent data reporting,” Mitchell wrote in the report. “The more information we have, the better. We can track these changes and see what's going on from lake to lake, as well as in the region.”
Mitchell hopes to use data from the online reporting form to study a continuing trend of shorter winters, and how they affect algae and plant growth around the state.
Algae growth in Vermont waters is already a threat to ecosystems, with Lake Champlain regularly experiencing blue-green algae growth in recent summers, which has been linked to serious health problems.
“If you have a longer summer, you can expect more growth overall, and warmer temperatures also lead to more growth,” Mitchell said of the algae.