Vermont Joe's Pond Ice Out Came On Thursday, The Premier Sign That Spring Has Arrived

The famed Vermont Joe's Pond ice out contest
ended at 8:41 p.m. Thursday when a cinder block
fell through the melting ice on the Danville, pond
which stopped the clock and heralded this year's winner

 The ice broke on Joe's Pond in Danville, Vermont at precisely 8:41 p.m. Thursday, April 17, spelling what I consider the official end of winter in the Green Mountain State. 

Joe's Pond Ice Out is an annual tradition in which thousands of people buy tickets to place bets on the exact time ice breaks on the relatively high elevation pond in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. This year, a record 16,749 tickets were sold for $1 each. 

Half the proceeds go to the person who came closest to correctly guessing the moment the ice went out, and the other half goes toward Joe's Pond water quality initiatives and an annual Fourth of July bash at the pond. 

To determine ice out, a cider block is attached to a pallet that's placed on Joe's Pond ice in the winter. pallet and cinder block are tethered to a clock on the shore. When the ice melts enough, the pallet and cinder block fall through the ice, disconnecting the tether to the clock.

That makes the clock stop, which determines the exact moment ice out hits. This event has been going on since 1988.

Ice out has happened as late as May 6, 1992 and as early as April 5, in the extraordinarily warm early spring of 2010. 

This year's ice out was earlier than long term average, following a trend that has been noticeable in the 38 years since the contest started.  Perhaps climate change is affecting the Joe's Pond ice out contest. 

In the first 20 years of the contest, ice out came on or after May 1 on seven occasions. In the past 18 years through Thursday, a May ice out happened only once, on May 4, 2018.

This is the sixth year in a row that Joe's Pond Ice Out occurred before April 20.  Such a string of early ice-outs had not happened before. There had never been as many as two consecutive pre-April 20 ice outs until this current stretch. 

As of this writing, the name of the 2025 Joe's Pond ice out winner hadn't been announced yet. That winner will receive a $7,835 check. If there's a tie, the winners will divide the proceeds.  

 

Vermont Summer: At Least The Pumpkins Are Big

Vermont Agriculture Secretary Anson Tebbetts snapped
this photo of this year's giant pumpkin contest at the 
Champlain Valley Fair.  The winner, middle pumpkin
weighed a record 1,327.5 pounds. 

I had a post the other day, I inventoried some of the negative effects such a hot, humid, wet summer we had on Vermont.  

But there were plusses to that oppressive weather, too.

Like giant pumpkins.

Wilbur Horton of Springfield, Vermont entered a giant pumpkin at the Champlain Valley Fair this past week that shattered the record for the heaviest one on record there. His pumpkin weighed a staggering, 1,327.5 pounds, as WPTZ reports. 

The old record for the most giant pumpkin any the fair was set last year, another hot, wet summer. That 2023 pumpkin weighed a mere 1,280 pounds. 

Most of the credit for this year's giant pumpkin record has to go to Horton's pumpkin growing prowess. He is, after all, a member of the Vermont Giant Pumpkin Growers Association. (I had no idea such an organization exists, but it sounds fun).

Still, pumpkins love hot, humid weather so the conditions were ripe, so to speak, for Horton's gourd. Southeastern Vermont, where Horton lives, was not as wet and somewhat sunnier than northern sections of the state during the summer, so that surely helped. 

If you want to see the winning pumpkin for yourself, there's still time. It's on display in the fairgrounds in Essex Junction until September 1.

Certain other crops do well in a Vermont summer that was more like you'd see in the Mid-Atlantic States.  My garden is producing cucumbers so prolifically and fast that my husband finds himself frantically pickling them so they last longer. 

I understand there's bumper crops of tomatoes. I see apple trees are sagging under the weight of a huge number of fruit. Also, don't get me started on zucchini.  

If you have a bumper crop, or giant pumpkins or other huge veggies, let me know. 

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. 

Joe's Pond Ice Out Contest Underway In Vermont. Maybe Bet Early?

It was 70 degrees on April 15 last year and the block that
indicates when the Joe's Pond ice hadn't fallen through.
The official ice out came on April 17, 2023. Photo
from the Joe's Pond Association. 

 I'm not a gambling man, but I'm willing to give a little advice on the subject anyway.  

If you're entering the annual Vermont Joe's Pond Ice Out Contest, bet on an early date. 

Joe's Pond is a beautiful, rather high elevation body of water in West Danville, Vermont, up in the Northeast Kingdom. 

Every spring, it's the subject of a popular guessing game and gamble: When will the ice break on the pond?  Thousands of dollars are at stake. 

The ice out contest started in 1987 as friends wanted to bet on when the ice would dissolve on the pond. To make the bet work, they had to device an exacting system to tell when the ice broke.

We'll let the folks at Joe's Pond take the explanation from here:

"After considerable discussion, they settled on a simple, low-tech control system: They places a well-used electric clock on Homer Fitt's deck and tethered it to a cinder block wired to a wooden pallet placed 100 feet out on the ice. That was it. 

The clock was checked twice daily in the morning and evening. When the block went down the clock was disconnected stopping at the 'official' ice-out time. Whoever guessed closest to the date a time the clock stopped won the contest."

That old electric clock has since been replaced by a weather proof timepiece  the location where the block is placed on the ice has changed a little. But everything else has remained the same with the contest since its inception. 

The contest has gotten huge. In 1990, about 1,500 people entered. Nowadays, a good 12,000 people buy ice out tickets, which cost $1 apiece. Half the proceeds go to the winner and the other half goes to the Joe's Pond Association. The Association uses the money for water quality programs and for events around the pond. 

Meanwhile, the winner will take home about $5,000.

 As I've extensively documented, this has been a remarkably toasty winter, and has an excellent shot at becoming the warmest winter on record. Which means the ice has not gotten thick on Joe's Pond. Plus, we haven't had a huge amount of snow. 

Deep snow atop Joe's Pond ice would insulate it from the warming rays of the late winter and early spring sun. 

The earliest ice outs on Joe's Pond don't necessarily follow the very warmest winters.  Before this year, the warmest winter on record was 2015-16. The ice broke that spring at 5:04 p.m. April 12, 2016. That was definitely an earlier than average ice out, but not THE earliest.

Those honors go to 2010, when the ice broke at 2:46 p.m on April 5.  

The winter of 2010 was a rather mild winter. But what really broke the ice was weather in early spring and especially the opening few days of April.

At St. Johnsbury - the nearest major weather station to Joe's Pond - mid-March featured a week of consecutive days in the 50s and 60s, which got the spring thaw going in earnest. 

Then, on April 2-4, a record early season heat wave hit, with daily highs those days in St. Johnsbury at 77, 84 and 83.  

The second earliest ice out was on April 8, 2012. Again it was a warm winter, but what really made the ice go out early was a week long, unprecedented record heat wave from March 18 through 23 that brought temperatures into the upper 70s and low 80s. 

I think we can see some tell-tale signs of climate change in Joe's Pond ice out dates, even though records only go back to 1988.

In the past 23 years, since 2000, the ice has only broken up on or after May 1 just three times, the most recent being in 2018. In the dozen years before 2000, the ice waited until on or after May 1 to break up on five occasions - nearly half the time. 

The latest ice break up on Joe's Pond was at 1:19 p.m. May 6, 1992.

As noted, this year, I expect an early ice out on Joe's Pond.  Not only have we experienced a warm winter, but now the end of February and the early part of March look very torchy in Vermont .In other words, aside for a couple cold days thrown in, it appears at least part of March will bring near record temperatures and melting ice. 

There's no telling what happens later in March and whatever part of April the ice holds on Joe's Pond. But I virtually guarantee we won't wait until May to see ice out. 

Beyond telling you the ice out will be early, I'm going to shut up about the rest of my Joe's Pond theories for 2024. After all, I purchased Joe's Pond Ice Out tickets, too, and I don't want to share my strategy.