[Lakegeezer]

When I moved to New England in the late 70's, the first few years taught me that winterization chores should be done by November 1. Perhaps that was an unusually cold period, but over the last 30+ years, that "deadline" has slipped to Thanksgiving. This year, the snowstorm caught me a bit unprepared, but luckily it was just a warning and all melted. In watching the ice freeze for 20 years, it is pretty normal to see it safe for walking by New Years day (same area as Homewood). Some years a few days before, and three or four years, it wasn't safe until after.

This thread got me thinking about the water temperature decline. I pulled the data from the water temperature pages on this web site and played around with graphing November/December water temperatures over the years. My skills with the reporting tools leave something to be desired, but the results are interesting to ponder. It is hard to pick any trends out of only 11 years of data, but overall, the grouping seems pretty tight with a few outliers. This year is starting out on the "above average" side of things.