Question about Ice formation on Utah lakes

[SkunkedAgain]

I can't speak with any specifics about the ponds you reference, but I can say every year is different, ice isn't tied to the calendar, it's always weather front related... Got to watch the average temperatures and durations below freezing to see if a large enough volume of water has had time to lose enough heat to be able to freeze up... Then the wind and mixing currents enters into the mix and it never is the same... But figure the deeper the water, the longer it will take to chill a big enough pool to freeze... I'm sure you're familiar with the turning over of the lakes due to the changing density of water... So surface water drops to 39 degrees and as it gets colder to that point it gets more dense and drops to the bottom of the pond... Once all of the subwater is cooled to approximately that point then as the surface water gets cooler, it actually gets less dense so it floats to the surface, thus why ice floats it's less dense than the water... Anyway long story for just saying that once the lake temp gets below 39 degrees then it's primed to start freezing when the nights get cold enough to freeze water... (Key point here is to watch the water temps, then you know when to expect ice to start...) At this point the wind and currents enter in to keep the water from freezing and so sometimes you get water colder than 32 degrees that only needs the wind to stop long enough for the crystals to set up into ice... Days like that you can watch the ice build across the lakes... pretty cool to see, but not often witnessed... What does all my BS mean??? It freezes when its right to freeze and till then we just need to be patient and remember to be careful and check as we go out on early ice... Our ice seasons seem to be pretty short lately in Utah, so when the ice gets good, you need to take advantage of it... The last few years it seems like the good ice only lasts 8- 10 weeks at best...(Note high altitude lakes have longer seasons... Strawberry is still fishing good ice after the lower lakes are thinking about water skis..)
Good luck this year and have fun... Later J
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