The Lake Is Still Frozen Over

I went to the shore of Lake Vesijärvi this morning. It was still frozen over. The 24-hour average (*) temperature will be about 5 C in the next couple of weeks, which should melt the ice.

*) I hate it that in English the word day means both the time it takes for the Earth to revolve around its axis and the time when the side of the Earth you're on is facing the sun. The Finnish word for the astronomical day is vuorokausi. The Swedish word that is dygn. The Finnish word of day (the light time of the day) is päivä. English has the word diurnal, an adjective that refers to the time period in which a planet revolves around its axis fully but it's rare and I guess a fairly large percentage of the entire native speaker population wouldn't know it.

The 24-hour average temperature is relevant for ice fishers in large parts of North America because it determines how safe it is to walk on the ice over a body of water. When freezing nights stop growing lake or sea ice at least as fast as warmth during the day melts it, it starts to become thinner and weaker much faster than before.