Lake water temperature off Toledo is 37 degrees (Wednesday, January 10). That means it has to drop five degrees to get to freezing temp. 39 off Cleveland.
Even with this forecast real cold spell coming, starting this Saturday and going through all of next week (daytime highs in the low 20’s / upper teens, nights in the single digits), I don’t think it’s going to be enough to get any significant ice on the main Lake by the 20-21 weekend. However, just looked at the Port Clinton Janauary forecast and the real cold is forecast to continue, with only a few days into the upper 20’s. If that holds, we may get good enough ice (barring lots of wind) by the January 27-28 weekend. If the cold continues into February, by the first weekend in February we could have good ice fishing.
Rare for water temp to be so high a third of the way through January. Wondering if that might be too warm to cool down to freezing and allow for good ice formation by the January 27/28 weekend.
Thoughts?