As evidenced in the WeatherCam's time lapse (
www.blackcatnh.com) over the past several days, the holes around Black Cat Shoals are widening more each day and the ice near shore has also opened up a lot.
There are cracks and a few holes starting to appear (small, but present) in the middle but the pack has been doing a very good job fighting the influence of the strong winds we've had the last 48 hours. Only last weekend there were sleds and ATVs on it, and the temperatures haven't been incredibly warm this week.
Yesterday winds peaked at 45 mph and frequent gusts to the high-30s continued through this morning. Time lapse shows the ice bobbing up and down a little but so far it's holding its own. Typically Black Cat Ledge's opening widens to the shores of Black Cat and sometimes over to Three-Mile, after which any West wind can grab the edge and start ripping.
The 6-14 day outlooks from the NWS show us in a below-normal temp trend through the period... so I doubt there'll be much 80-degree weather to speed the iceout process up.
Those with shoreline structures... just keep watching the wind. If the wind has its way, the lake will break up into thick shards of ice without the temp being able to soften it first, and we could see a recurrance of the damaging "false iceout" we had in January's high winds.