bad ice and very heavy snow??

[kc0myy]

well down here in annandale we got about 5" of very heavy wet snow. the ice is really crappy (not crappie lol). my question is what will all this heavy wet snow do to the ice? will it make the ice come of sooner? will be prolong the ice out date? I just want to get into my boat soon.

[paceman]

I wish we would have only got 5". Up here we got anywhere from 17-20 depending on who you talk to. My yard has about 17". The ice was still pretty solid once you got away from shore. I think it will prolong the icemelt as the sun has to melt all the snow first and then the ice. Hopefully that happens before may 9th.......

[OTBASSER]

unfortunately I agree with paceman, I think this snow will prolong iceout. I am sure it will be before the ninth though.

[kc0myy]

well I was thinking that too but with is being so heavy. there is a lot of water and when that melts it would soften up the ice and if the wind picked up that it would break up the ice. so I was not sure so I thought I would ask thanks for the input.

[Outfitter17]

It will prolong the ice out, as mentioned earlier the snow need to melt before the sun/rain/wind can work on the ice.

[Drewski]

We may need to bring the augers along on opener this year!

[opsirc]

warm temps will help alot.

[LakeDocktor]

warm temps will help alot.

Water temperatures do help the process, but without the sun being able to penetrate the ice and snow, the water has a hard time warming up. If the body of water has moderate flowage via runoff and stream or river then things will progress a little faster, but the snow definitely will insulate the ice and not allow the sun and air temperatures as well as the wind to penetrate and deteriorate as fast.

[wplatehunter]

We had to skip open water with the snowmobile to fish last weekend, but once we got to where we wanted to fish the ice was over 2' still. I'm done ice fishing and happy about it.