Over the last few years, many people have been surprised that Devil’s Lake had not frozen over by Mid-January. In fact, during the winter of 2019/2020, the lake was mostly frozen in December but didn’t freeze completely until Jan 28th, beating the previous late freeze record by a day. Seeing the lake not freeze until January isn’t all that unusual, not in the last 20 years anyway.
The park has Ice-In/Ice-Out records going back to 1941, except for missing records from 09/10, 11/12, 12/13, 13/14.
Here are some interesting notes…
When looking at Freeze-Thaw records at Devil’s Lake State Park it’s important to note that these records do not note seasons where the lake may have frozen, then thawed, then refroze. In recent years this is a common occurrence as well. For instance, during the season of 2016/17 the lake froze over on December 21st but opened again on January 6th.