Northwestern Ontario ice-out could be late

It is nearly mid-April now and at our home in Nolalu we should be hearing the roar of the Whitefish River, about a mile away. How streams get their designations is a mystery. The Whitefish "River" would just be a creek in many other places. The only time it is the least bit navigable is normally right now when the spring melt sends all of the winter's precipitation down a myriad of rivulets that dump into the river. A month later you can walk down the river in most places, jumping from rock to rock and never get your feet wet.
Today the Whitefish looks just like it did all winter -- frozen from one side to the other with no visible signs of flowing water.
Even though we have lost at least half our snow, none of it seems to have gone to runoff. The ditches are completely dry. The snow has just evaporated in the stronger-than-normal winds.
Temperatures should be +10 C in the days and around 0 C at night. Instead we are just starting to see the first hours of above-freezing with miserly temperatures of +1 or 2 C. At night the mercury plummets to -15 C. The nighttime temperatures are not unlike those of winter.
The reason for all of this is climate change that has sent Arctic temperatures soaring and forced cold air farther south. The result has been Ohio-like winter temperatures at the top of the world and Arctic temperatures in places like Ontario, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
There is about four feet of ice on the lakes everywhere in Northwestern Ontario. That is about as thick as it ever gets. The ice itself acts as insulation that prevents it from freezing deeper. It is only about a month before the opening of fishing season, May 19. Can four feet of ice thaw in just one month?
If fact it can, if the temperatures got back to normal right away but according to the weather forecasts, normal temperatures are at least a couple of weeks away.
A good picture of what is normal can be found by going to The Weather Network Canada
Find the locality you are interested in and click on the 14-Day Forecast. At the bottom will be a chart showing a line for the normal highs and lows.
For places like Red Lake, keep in mind that the normal ice-out date is May 8 with a normal variability of a week before and a week after that date. Then keep in mind that there is about a foot more ice this winter than normal so it will take higher than normal temperatures to melt it on time.
As I said earlier, we have seen in the past four feet of ice melt in a month but that was when the springtime temps were pretty normal for this time of year. That has not been the case so far nor is it expected to change for at least a couple of weeks.
On the positive side, lots of the snow has evaporated and there haven't been recent accumulations of new snow. Every new snowfall sets back the ice-out by about a week. Also the ice itself is what we call blue ice. It is the strongest type but because of its bluish colour melts more rapidly when exposed to sunlight than white ice that reflects the sun rays.
When I put all the factors together my best guess right now is that ice-out is going to be late. For places like Red Lake that could put it around May 19. Nolalu and Thunder Bay areas are usually a week earlier.