Definitely no need for bubblers anymore. There will be some re-freezing, and given what the long-term large scale weather pattern has been doing I would not be surprised to see snow in April or even May this year. However, due to the sun being pretty high in the sky now (and daylight duration about 12 hours) the lake's season of ice growth is definitely over and the season of ice loss is now becoming noticeable.
The ice is not as thick as it normally is, despite the extremely cold January. There were 10 days with sub-zero readings at
Black Cat Island Weather Station and the month's overall average temp was 14.1 degrees. The ice did not thicken that much this year because we got early snow (it played a large role in freezing the lake this season) and after the flaky, low-quality "snow ice" formed and stayed, we got more snow on top of it. Snow is an insulator. For most of this winter there was a snowpack of several inches on top of the lake ice, keeping the 33-degree water below the ice from giving up too much heat to the air, which would have resulted in some really good ice growth in the kind of temperatures we had in January.
Last night we had 0.44 inch of rain which fell heavily and eroded at the edges of the ice near rocks, buoys, and the shore. The sun has been melting away at those small openings all day as we are now about as warm as we were yesterday (45.)
The rain and warm temps also rapidly melted the snowpack on the ice so now it has the look of a melting hockey rink out there. Plenty of sleds still, but they're doing a lot of splashing around in the deep puddles.
With the lake ice's snowpack now gone, many areas have lost that bright white reflector that has been protecting the ice. The darker colors are now exposed and this will help absorb more light starting today. That will result in faster melting.