DULUTH, Minn. — An expert on Minnesota lakes is predicting that despite a slightly warmer-than-average winter in the northern part of the state, ice-out in the Northland this year will be later than average.
John Downing, director of the University of Minnesota's Sea Grant program that's headquartered at the University of Minnesota Duluth, has developed what he calls an "ice-out widget" that people can use to get an estimate of when ice-out will occur in their area.
Downing, a professor of biology, an expert in limnology and freshwater lakes and whose family has had a cabin on a northern Minnesota lake for 120 years, wanted to find out what the biggest factors were when the ice melts on lakes.
