Ice Cover in Fair and Gull Lakes — Aquatic Studies
Data in the KBS LTER core database may not be published without written permission of the lead investigator or project director Full terms of use
Ice cover has been observed in two local lakes:
- Fair Lake, Barry County, MI (northeast of Hickory Corners, MI)
- Area 229 acres
- Maximum depth ~29 feet
- Elevation ~914 feet above sea level
Ice cover in this lake system has been monitored by local citizens, assisted since 1996 by Stephen Hamilton. Citizen volunteers: Wendell Shafer until 1998, Terry Smith 1999 until March 2008, Bob Price since then.
- Gull Lake, Kalamazoo and Barry counties, MI (southwest of Hickory Corners, MI)
- Area 2040 acres
- Maximum depth ~110 feet
- Elevation ~881 feet above sea level
Ice cover in this lake system has been monitored by local citizens, assisted since 1998 by Stephen Hamilton. The lake drains via an outflow stream into the Gull Creek system. In recent years the lake has been declared ice-covered when it was more than half frozen for more than a day, as viewed from the midpoint at Kellogg Biological Station. It is uncertain how brief ice cover periods and partial ice cover were dealt with in the record prior to 1996.
Contact: Dr. Stephen K. Hamilton, 269/761-2231 or hamilton@kbs.msu.edu
This datatable is part of the Lake Levels and Ice cover on local lakes dataset.
Lake levels and ice cover have been measured on local lakes with the help cf citizen volunteers.
Note
| Experiment: | Aquatic Studies |
| Data available from: | December 1923 to March 2022 |
| Dataset: | KBS096 |
| Datatable ID: | KBS096-001.19 |
| Repository link: | http://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/7922025ea54dbd18cea8574dccb30578 |
| Related Tables: | |
| Personnel: |
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| Last Updated | 2023-10-24 |
| Variate | Description | Units |
|---|---|---|
| lake | name of the lake | |
| winter | year the winter began | |
| freeze date | date the lake was frozen | |
| thaw date | date the lake was thawed | |
| ice cover days | number of days the lake was frozen | |
| comments | a comment about the year or data row |
| Protocols |
|---|
Data Excerpt
| lake | winter | freeze_date | thaw_date | ice_cover_days | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fair Lake | 2021 | 2022-01-03 | 2022-03-18 | 74 | Froze for a couple of short (1-2 day) intervals prior to 3 Jan 22. |
| Gull Lake | 2021 | 2022-01-16 | 2022-03-22 | 65 | |
| Gull Lake | 2020 | 2021-01-29 | 2021-03-11 | 41 | |
| Fair Lake | 2020 | 2021-01-01 | 2021-03-11 | 69 | |
| Gull Lake | 2019 | 2020-01-20 | 2020-03-07 | 47 | Thawed >50% for one week 7-14 Feb then refroze that period not counted. |