This page tracks historical ice-in and ice-out dates for Long Lake in Park Rapids, Minnesota, including current conditions and long-term trends. The Long Lake ice record is one of the area’s longest continuous environmental records and helps us understand seasonal patterns, climate trends, and lake conditions over time.
Looking for current ice conditions? Visit our Is Long Lake Frozen page for the latest ice status.
Current Long Lake Ice Status (Park Rapids, MN)
**Ice In (Winter 2025):** December 14, 2025
**Ice Out (Spring 2025):** April 19, 2025
These dates reflect the official ice-in and ice-out determinations for Long Lake, as tracked by the Long Lake Area Association.
Ice-in marks the date when the lake becomes fully ice-covered, and ice-out marks the date when the lake is completely free of ice in spring.
About the Long Lake Ice Record
The LLAA has tracked ice-in and ice-out dates on Long Lake for decades, creating one of the area’s most valuable long-term environmental records. These observations help inform lake stewardship, support state and county monitoring efforts, and provide meaningful insight into seasonal patterns over time.
This page has information on ice-in and ice-out data gathered by Sharon Natzel with help from several observers around the lake. They check the lake to determine the dates that the lake freezes over and the dates when it thaws in the spring. Once our official ice in or out dates are determined, the data is provided to several agencies, including the MN DNR Climatology Office and the Hubbard County SWCD that track ice.
FUN FACT: According to HJ White Ice Out was May 5th in 1935.
How Ice-In and Ice-Out Data Is Collected
Long Lake has some very deep spots that make exact dates for the lake freezing over difficult to calculate. The dates for ice-out in the spring are much easier. The original Ice-In and Ice-Out data was provided by the late Bella and John Sanders, whose home was near the mid-section of Long Lake. They collaborated with the late Bill Anderson who lived close to the deepest part of the lake toward the North end.
Vern Campbell, a friend of Lou Schultz, worked on the statistics for Long Lake based on these observations. Their control graphs allow us to predict our future, average (mean) ice-in date. The control limits are calculated from the data and are plus and minus three standard deviations from the mean. The green lines depict the mean or average ice-in and ice-out. The red lines show the control limits or extremes of what can be expected. They tell us in a stable system (no outside influences) we would only have three years out of one thousand where the ice-in could fall after January 3 or before November 20. Katie Hoffman has taken over using the most recent data to create our graphs.
Long Lake Ice Out Contest
LLAA holds an Ice Out Contest each year. Members and families can submit their guesses for when Long Lake will be free of ice around the beginning of March. (The exact date for entries will be announced in the monthly newsletter) . The person who guesses correctly (or the nearest date) will get bragging rights for the year. All contestants will be entered into a drawing for prize to be awarded at the annual meeting.
Minnesota DNR Ice Data Links
DNR Median Ice Out Data for the state of MN
(to find Long Lake (# 29016100) DNR data use this link)
Interested in preserving Long Lake’s future?
Learn more about the Long Lake Area Association and how we protect the lake for future generations or participate in our Lake Stewardship Program.
Support this work:
→ Become a member or pay your annual dues
→ Donate to support lake stewardship efforts
The charts and statistics below summarize long-term ice-out and ice-in trends on Long Lake based on historical data collected by LLAA volunteers.
Ice Out Data
According to Katie Hoffman:
Average ice out date remains April 20th.
The average ice out date trend-line is flat – it has not changed over this time period.
Distribution of ice out by week is reasonably normally distributed (skew -0.04, kurtosis -0.19), which in laymen’s terms means that it is fairly predictable and we can use normal-distribution statistics to draw a few conclusions:
- There is a 50% probability that ice out happens between April 13th – April 27th each year (Quartile 1 and Quartile 3 values, respectively).
- There is a 99.7% probability that ice out happens between March 20th – May 22nd each year (the Lower Control Limit and Upper Control Limit, respectively).
Click here to see chart of dates used to make these Ice-Out graphs.
Ice In Data
From our volunteer statistician: The following are the charts for Long Lake Ice In 2025. Looking at the chart, over the past 11 or so years, there appears to be a “drift” upwards (or later) in the Ice-In chart. Although strictly speaking, this “drift” is still within the realm of random probability, it is interesting to note. Click here to view chart of dates for Ice In graph
Ice Data - Raw Data
Ice Out Data
| Ice Out | Year |
|---|---|
| 1987 | |
| 4/21 | 1988 |
| 4/27 | 1989 |
| 4/23 | 1990 |
| 4/20 | 1991 |
| 4/13 | 1992 |
| 4/21 | 1993 |
| 4/18 | 1994 |
| 4/25 | 1995 |
| 5/7 | 1996 |
| 4/26 | 1997 |
| 4/11 | 1998 |
| 4/16 | 1999 |
| 4/9 | 2000 |
| 4/28 | 2001 |
| 4/18 | 2002 |
| 4/18 | 2003 |
| 4/19 | 2004 |
| 4/14 | 2005 |
| 4/12 | 2006 |
| 4/25 | 2007 |
| 5/5 | 2008 |
| 4/24 | 2009 |
| 4/2 | 2010 |
| 4/28 | 2011 |
| 3/26 | 2012 |
| 5/11 | 2013 |
| 4/29 | 2014 |
| 4/13 | 2015 |
| 4/6 | 2016 |
| 4/7 | 2017 |
| 5/5 | 2018 |
| 4/26 | 2019 |
| 4/26 | 2020 |
| 4/7 | 2021 |
| 5/7 | 2022 |
| 5/3 | 2023 |
| 4/8 | 2024 |
| 4/19 | 2025 |
Ice In Data
| Ice-In | Year |
|---|---|
| 12/20 | 1987 |
| 11/28 | 1988 |
| 12/4 | 1989 |
| 12/20 | 1990 |
| 11/23 | 1991 |
| 12/16 | 1992 |
| 12/16 | 1993 |
| 12/12 | 1994 |
| 11/28 | 1995 |
| 11/27 | 1996 |
| 12/22 | 1997 |
| 12/21 | 1998 |
| 12/21 | 1999 |
| 12/10 | 2000 |
| 12/21 | 2001 |
| 12/3 | 2002 |
| 12/11 | 2003 |
| 12/14 | 2004 |
| 12/29 | 2005 |
| 12/14 | 2006 |
| 12/8 | 2007 |
| 12/8 | 2008 |
| 12/13 | 2009 |
| 12/8 | 2010 |
| 1/14 | 2012 |
| 12/17 | 2012 |
| 12/6 | 2013 |
| 12/24 | 2014 |
| 12/30 | 2015 |
| 12/16 | 2016 |
| 12/21 | 2017 |
| 12/22 | 2018 |
| 12/10 | 2019 |
| 12/15 | 2020 |
| 12/21 | 2021 |
| 12/17 | 2022 |
| 1/12 | 2024 |
| 12/18 | 2024 |
| 12/14 | 2025 |
Provided by the Long Lake Area Association