Earthquake coming?

[kelly-p]

No pressure ridges on this side of the lake yet. -5 degree's tonight, + 29 degree's on Tuesday. When will everyone be scared out of their fish houses as a pressure ridge blows? I'll guess 1:30 PM Tuesday.

[Random guy]

Way to jinx us!

I'm pretty sure its going to happen no matter what but now its your fault.

Better get the bridging material dug out...

[Random guy]

This weeks temps are not how we make ice...but it will be nice out.

21°F /27°F/ 27°F/ 26°F/ 24°F

[cookie129]

3 years ago I had sent the guys in florida house to fish by a small pressure ridge as it was in the high 20s. I was visiting Jill in utah when the lake rumbled and the house shook. I reached out for the first thing and grabbed Jill. Boy did they get a laugh out of that. I quickly explained I was protecting her .The guy in florida had drilled right next to it and it exploded up right in front of him and he ### is pants and I do not think he was kidding. It has to be just like a earthquke as the ice shook for a few seconds.

[kelly-p]

Everytime a pressure ridge blows it must be instinct to run for the door of the fish house. Then when you get outside yoiu realize that it was only a ridge blowing and you look pretty stupid for being scared. But when you look around the lake everybody is out of their fish houses pretending that they were not scared. That guys was just getting something out of this truck, the guy over there just stepped outside his house to stretch and so it goes. Everybody looking around hoping that nobody noticed that they were scared.

This is part of an article by Brad Dokken in the Grand Forks Herald years ago.

Column by Brad Dokken

It started as a distant rumble, like a freight train on the horizon.

Comfortably settled in our "sleeper" fish house on the south shore of Lake of the Woods, we all knew the sound. Not a train, but ice, a living skin between air and water as it thickened and expanded and groaned.

Think of angry seas. Frozen angry seas.

Rapidly gathering steam, the sound grew to a deafening crescendo as it passed below our feet. Walls shook. Water in holes drilled through 20 inches of ice bobbed.

The sound, which has echoed through untold ages on this frozen water, triggers a primitive, primordial emotion in human psyches. For a few seconds, all other thoughts ceased to exist as the sound overtook our senses and sent at least one member of our group -- and maybe more -- instinctively scrambling for the door.

Then, as soon as it arrived, the sound was gone, rumbling off on the horizon for distant, unseen destinations.

We caught our breaths, laughed the nervous laugh that comes from enduring an intense experience and went about our business of resting, relaxing and fishing from the comfort of our heated fish house.

All bladders survived intact.

There was no danger involved with this encounter. Only a sense of awe, of temporary fear. This was just ice on a big lake doing what ice on a big lake sometimes does. And when that ice is 20 inches thick, the result can be noisy.

I spend a lot of time on frozen water and I hear a lot of groaning ice. This was a rumbling the likes of which I hadn't experienced in several years, an encounter of almost avalanche-like proportions.

My last encounter with ice like this was back in 1987, when Grinde and I ventured to Upper Red Lake for a day of walleye fishing.

That time, too, the sound disappeared almost as quickly as it had arrived, rumbling off into the night.

I remember looking out the fish house window, expecting to see my car sinking out of sight. The car was fine, but Frisbee, Grinde's springer spaniel, was outside and frantically running in circles, not sure what to make of the earthquake on ice.

The icy outburst on Lake of the Woods triggered memories of that encounter for Grinde and me. The similarities were many, the instinctual rush of initial fear the same.

Only this time, there was no springer spaniel running in circles, only Blake (and maybe others) making a beeline for the door.

We all got a good laugh out of that later.

[shaky legs2]

The only other thing that can scare the bejezzus out of you is when Kelly sends those low flyers right out over your house.