Joe's Pond Ice Out Came On A Chilly April Pre-Dawn Sunday

 The ice on Joe's Pond in West Danville, Vermont went out at 4:02 Sunday morning, meaning whoever guessed that time is in for a surprise pot of money. 

It's official! The famous Joe's Pond 
ice out hit at 4:02 a.m. Sunday. It
was the fifth earliest ice out
in the 36-year history of the event. 

The ice out is determined by a block set out on the pond during the winter. It's tethered to a clock placed on shore. When the block falls through the ice into the water during the spring thaw, it disconnects the wire, stopping the clock. 

 The moment the clock stops is regarding as Joe's Pond ice out. 

Thousands of people buy tickets at $1 a pop to guess when the ice will go out. Whoever comes closest to the time win.  The person who won with this morning's ice out is set to collect about $5,000.

The ice out early Sunday was the fifth earliest in the 36 years this has been going on at Joe's Pond. In a post I wrote in this here blog thingy back on February 25, I advised people to bet on an early ice out, given the record warm winter. 

I had thought it was possible we'd have a record early Joe's Pond ice out this year given the thin ice caused by a lack of cold nights and frequent thaws through the winter.  

After all, it was practically the year without a winter in Vermont - the warmest on record. 

I think a couple of factors kept this from being a record early year. Spring snowstorms on March 23 and April 4 laid down a layer of brilliant white snow on top of the Joe's Pond ice. That reflected the sun's heat back up to space. That meant ice on the pond couldn't melt as efficiently. 

Also, in three of the four Joe's Pond ice outs that were earlier than this year's record warm spells happened during or just prior to the ice out times and dates. Temperatures up in the 70s to near 80 of course really melt the ice quickly.

National Weather Service in South Burlington released this
graph showing the trend of earlier ice outs over
the years at Joe's Pond. 

This  year, we had some warm days in March and early April. But since early March, we haven't had any record early season heat.   That might have slowed the pace of the melting down a little. 

The timing of the ice out was interesting. Temperatures had to be barely above freezing at Joe's Pond when the ice went out at 4:02 a.m. Sunday. 

The block was probably just barely hanging on the edge all day Saturday and into the evening. Something as simple as a gust of wind might have nudged it through the ice early Sunday. Who knows, right?

Still, this year's Joe's Pond ice out continues a trend of earlier and earlier ice outs. Prior to 2010, there were no ice outs earlier than April 16.  Since then, we've now had five of them.