Big forest fires could change ice-out times

 As I looked at the area with no snow on the Windy app and then the area that burned in forest fires in 2021 as seen on the Worldview app, I realized they are one and the same. Then came the epiphany: the reason there is no snow on the ground from Red Lake west to Lake Winnipeg is the same reason there is no snow in central Manitoba -- there are no longer trees to create shade that slows down the spring melt.

It takes a little practice to interpret the Worldview satellite photo but that smooth, dun-coloured area west of Red Lake is all a burn. Many of the places that burned in 2021 had also burned in 2018 and 2016 and earlier.

In reading 2022 blogs of canoeists who paddled Woodland Caribou Provincial Park -- the area west of Red Lake -- they tell how places with 3-5-foot new growth trees from those earlier fires burned again in 2021. Even the standing dead tree trunks from those earlier fires burned. There wasn't even enough wood to make a campfire. In lots of places even the soil burned leaving nothing but exposed bedrock.

As I speculated in this blog at the fall of 2021, I wonder if the treeless prairie is now extending all the way to Red Lake?

Woodland Caribou is the eastern half of the gigantic wilderness canoeing area west of Red Lake. The Manitoba western side is called Atikaki Provincial Park. Together they encompass millions of acres and just about all of it has burned, mostly in 2021.

Forests have an impact on weather systems. They slow the wind and retain moisture. Now that there is mostly wide open space between Red Lake and the Prairies, I think we can expect some big changes.

Trout Lake angler George Miller uses the end of snow on the ground as a start to the countdown of when ice-out will occur on Trout Lake. It happens roughly 30 days later.

This makes sense. Once the snow is gone the dark ground heats rapidly and makes the whole area warmer. So early no-snow dates caused by lack of trees should lead to earlier ice-outs.