See the thick red bar. Midway up on he left. Shows in inches where the ice depth was on February 12. It’s thicker than most recent years but nowhere near the horrendously cold and long winter of 2018 – the gold bar on the top. Images: Army Corps of Engineers
Our long wait: When cometh first 2025 barge
LAKE CITY, Minn. – The ice pack on Lake Pepin was as thick as 20 inches in the first Army Corps borings of the season – about average for mid-February. The Corps takes measurements weekly to help the navigation industry decide when to restart barge traffic. Usually the first barge is pushed through thinning ice in mid-March. Currently the upper reaches of the 22-mile lake is ice-free, which is normal because of currents, but elsewhere the ice is nine to 20 inches thick.
How thick the ice. Bill Chelmowski from the Army Corps powers an auger into Lake Pepin ice. He stops his airboat at 22 pre-determined spots weekly, one every mile, to see when
Lake Pepin profile
> Lake Pepin has the thickest ice on the Mississippi River because it sits in a basin behind the Chippewa River delta. The current is too slight to slow ice build-up.
> Not until the ice pack is down to 12 inches can the navigation industry run barges through the lake safely.
> Every year the first barge through Lake Pepin is cause for celebration in port towns up and down the Mississippi. It marks the river’s opening of commerce all the way to St. Paul and Minneapolis.