Lake Harriet Ice Report - March 17, 2012

	St. Patrick's Day in the age of warming - Lake Harriet (76 F) Kids cavorting in the water on March 17, 2012.
	Lake Harriet, north side. March 17, 2012 This is the icy side of the lake. The ice cake is floating free all the way around, starting to break apart. I predict ice out in 3 days (Tuesday, Mar 20).

Ice out on Lake Harriet.

	Saturday, March 17, south side of Lake Harriet You can see it won't be long now, but at least 80% of the lake surface still covered with ice. This was probably the largest expanse of open water I found. I predicted it would be three more days before the lake was clear.
	Sun, Mar 18, 2012. South side of Lake Harriet. Earliest ice out I can remember. 24 hours ago most of the lake was still covered with ice. Now it looks like this.  Silly me. I guess I just didn't believe the 79-degree weather could keep it up.

Full disclosure - at 7:15 pm ice out wasn't quite complete yet.  There was one small patch of rotting ice squatting under some low hanging trees on the southwest side of the lake.  Two hours later, temp still above 70.  I figure that little patch will be gone by midnight.  I'm calling it.