Treading on Wisconsin’s frozen lakes has gotten more dangerous, creating cost for taxpayers and business owners and calling into question the future of an important state pastime.
The post On thin ice: Falls through the ice on Wisconsin lakes are becoming more common. There’s more than just warm weather to blame appeared first on WPR.
This story was produced in partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Investigative Journalism class taught in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
When Alec Hembree fell through the ice on Lake Wingra last winter, he remembered, “it was instantaneous.”
It was just after dark on Jan. 20. The temperature was around 2 degrees. Hembree was riding his bike across the frozen lake from his work on Madison’s east side to his home on the west side, a commute he had tried successfully for the first time the previous week. When he fell in, his feet couldn’t touch the bottom. He barely had time to be scared.
“I think there were a couple people on the lake,” Hembree said. “They wouldn’t have been able to get to me before I got out.”
The air was so cold, Hembree’s leather gloves immediately froze to the icy surface of the lake when he tried to pull himself out. After about 30 seconds in the water, he was able to pull himself and his bike out. It all happened so fast, he wasn’t sure how he did it. He thinks his training from being an Eagle Scout helped.
“Everything was in an ice shell at that point,” he said. He biked 10 minutes to a co-worker’s house, where he used a hair dryer to thaw his jacket zipper and get out of his frozen clothes before his co-worker gave him a ride home.
Hembree’s experience is becoming more common on Wisconsin’s lakes. For some, falls prove deadly. The Department of Natural Resources last winter recorded five people statewide who died falling through the ice on off-highway vehicles across the state. Between 2020 and 2024, similar accidents accounted for a total of seven deaths.
According to the Madison Fire Department, the Lake Rescue Team was dispatched four times to rescue people who fell through the ice in 2025 and six times in 2024, though only once in 2023. Through the end of 2025, the department had responded to 39 incidents of people falling through the ice since 2016. On Dec. 27 (as this story was being finalized for publication) the department rescued another individual who had fallen through the ice on Lake Mendota.
But those are only the incidents where the Lake Rescue Team was dispatched, so the stories of Hembree and others who fell through the ice and managed to escape aren’t included.
“This (past) year has probably been one of the more dangerous years on ice that I can remember,” said Lt. Jacob Holsclaw, the Wisconsin DNR’s off-highway vehicle administrator.
Treading on Wisconsin’s frozen lakes has gotten more dangerous, creating cost for taxpayers and business owners and calling into question the future of an important state pastime.
Trekking on Dane County’s frozen lakes is a common winter activity for southern Wisconsin residents.
“Walking on frozen lakes” was the most common activity on the lakes among respondents to a 2010 Dane County Land & Water Resources Department survey. At 28%, that was more common than swimming, kayaking, boating, or fishing from a boat or pier. Other ice-related activities such as skating and fishing were more popular than water skiing, jet skiing and sailing. The study authors estimated that close to 110,000 Dane County residents — more than a fifth of the population — walked on the county’s frozen water bodies at least once in 2010.
The heavy usage of the frozen lakes provides a revenue stream for numerous Dane County businesses and nonprofits. For example, the Clean Lakes Alliance hosts the annual Frozen Assets Festival, in which hundreds of participants take part in a fundraising 5K on frozen Lake Mendota and others enjoy scientific demonstrations, ice skating, kiting, boating and other ice-related activities.
But the future of frozen recreation in Dane County is in peril. Madison winters are getting shorter and less predictable. And falls through the ice are becoming more common.
Ron Blumer, a Madison Fire Department division chief who heads the department’s Lake Rescue Team and has been with the city since 1995, said in recent years his team has conducted “a lot more responses” to calls to rescue people who fell through the ice.
Part of the uptick can be attributed to climate change and the shrinking number of days of 100% ice cover on the Yahara lakes. Since 1855, when the Wisconsin State Climatology Office began consistently tracking Lake Mendota’s freezing and thawing dates, the lake has stayed frozen for an average of 102 days every winter. But only in four of the last 25 years has Mendota been frozen that long. During the 2023-24 winter, the lake was frozen for 44 days — a more than 20-year low. Last winter it froze for 69 days.
While information about how thick ice should be for walking or driving varies between sources, there is some consensus: No ice is ever completely safe.
“We really shy away from saying that there’s ever any ice that’s 100% safe,” Holsclaw said. The DNR’s website offers no hard and fast rules for what’s considered a “safe” thickness.
“You cannot judge the strength of ice by one factor like its appearance, age, thickness, temperature or whether the ice is covered with snow,” the website reads. “Ice strength is based on a combination of several factors.”
Air temperature is just one of those factors. But others include wind, sunlight, whether the ice is near a spring or other moving water, and whether the ice is frozen water (black ice) or mixed with snow (white ice).
“Black ice can withstand a lot more force (than white ice),” said Adrianna Gorsky, a freshwater and marine sciences Ph.D. candidate at UW-Madison. “Even if you have really thick white ice, it might not be as strong as if you had black ice only.”
Fluctuations in temperature during winter can also have a marked effect on ice thickness and quality. In January and February of 2025, it wasn’t uncommon for temperatures to fluctuate by tens of degrees within a single week in Dane County. On Jan. 21, the day after Hembree fell through the ice, Madison temperatures were in the single digits. A week later, on Jan. 28, the high temperature was 49 degrees. This frequent melting and thawing back and forth, Gorsky said, could result in mixed layers of black and white ice that would compromise the ice’s structural integrity.
Variations in temperature can also make lake ice expand or contract, causing pressure heaves or large cracks to form in the surface of the ice.
“And there will be a gap in there where there’s thin ice or no ice at all,” said Jon Mast, a lieutenant on MFD’s Lake Rescue team. These areas can be especially dangerous to walk near.
For as much that is known about factors affecting ice thickness and qualities, “there is a lot of unknown,” said Gorsky. That’s because winter limnology is relatively understudied compared to other areas of marine science.
“There’s a lot of things we still don’t know and a lot of theory that we’ve based off summer open water season that doesn’t really hold true for winter,” Gorsky said.
Increasingly visible effects of climate change on lake ice have precipitated “a cry for more research” in winter limnology, Gorsky added. And it can’t come soon enough. Because falls through the ice are costing local businesses, nonprofits and taxpayers money.
In Madison, there are no fines associated with being rescued from falling through the ice. Because, Blumer said, “we want people to enjoy the lakes and to have fun.” But that fun still comes at a cost.
Businesses and organizations that rely on the ice for income are feeling the strain of weakening lake ice too.
In 2024 the Clean Lakes Alliance canceled all on-ice events for its Frozen Assets Festival, including the annual 5K. According to Sarah Skwirut, the Clean Lakes Alliance’s marketing coordinator, only around 200 participants participated in the on-land “winter workout” the organization hosted in lieu of the 5K, down from 800 who ran the 5K the previous winter, which generated around $30,000 for the nonprofit.
“If the lack of ice becomes more common in the future,” Skwirut said in an email, “we will need to adapt and find new ways to engage the community and promote our work.”
Small businesses are equally if not more affected by the phenomenon. In 2022, Pat Hasburgh purchased D&S Bait and Tackle in Madison, “very aware of what I was getting myself into as far as climate change and running a business that kind of depends on ice,” Hasburgh said. He admitted the recent, mercurial winters have made it difficult to plan for the ice fishing season.
“I mean, I had a pile of augers waist high in 2022,” Hasburgh said, citing that people are less likely to need such a high-powered tool to break through the ice in warmer winters. And 2024 was even worse.
“We had four weeks of ice, as opposed to three months,” he said. “That was a rough one to try to make it through as a business.” Hasburgh is used to around a third of D&S’s business coming from ice fishing, but guessed that it was probably less than a quarter in 2024.
The increase in falls through the ice is easier to see in a populous part of the state like Dane County. But the trend is apparent across Wisconsin. And in many cases, the cost is more than just lost business or an icy bike ride.
The five deaths this past winter happened in Pewaukee, Kenosha, Fond du Lac, Superior and Westfield, an hour north of Madison, where a man died on Jan. 6 after falling through the ice on Lawrence Lake while riding a UTV.
In a Facebook post, the Marquette County Sheriff’s Office urged the public “to avoid venturing onto frozen lakes or rivers unless they have confirmed the ice is thick enough for safe activities.”
The temperature in Westfield on Jan. 6 was below freezing and had been every day the previous week.
An October 2024 study published in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment warned that lakes between 40 and 45 degrees north latitude — a range that includes all of Wisconsin south of Wausau — could lose all safe ice for the winter sometime this century.
A solution may lie in more research. Gorsky said predicting the future of what winter is going to look like for lakes “is a really big research topic.”
For Hembree’s part, he considers himself lucky to be alive. But he has “no concerns” about going back on the ice. He’s enjoying it while he still can.
“If I do go out commuting on the lake again I will be, certainly, more cautious,” he said.
The Madison Fire Department offers these tips for those planning to go out on the ice this winter:
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On thin ice: Falls through the ice on Wisconsin lakes are becoming more common. There’s more than just warm weather to blame. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
Carrie Eaton from the Madison Nordic Ski Club said it's a good time to be getting outside. She shared tips for taking advantage of the snowy weather with WPR's "Wisconsin Today."
The post How to enjoy Wisconsin’s winters outside, even in the dark appeared first on WPR.
The planet continues to warm due to human activity; bouts of cold weather don’t change this.
Satellites around the world measure temperatures at different places throughout the year. These are averaged to calculate annual global temperatures.
The past ten years (2015-2024) have been the ten hottest since modern record-keeping began in 1850, and 2024 was the all-time hottest. The last time Earth had a colder-than-average year was 1976.
Weather refers to meteorological conditions — heat, humidity, precipitation, etc. — in a given moment, while climate represents patterns of weather over time.
Cold snaps still occur, but they’re becoming less common as Earth warms from human emissions of heat-trapping gases.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Does cold weather disprove human-caused climate change? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
After months of uncertainty over its future, an online resource for tracking the financial cost of weather and climate disasters throughout the United States has been revived.
The U.S. Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters database was previously managed by a team at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. Since 1980, the program has been responsible for analyzing wildfires, tornadoes, winter storms, and other disasters that cause at least $1 billion in damage. But it was retired in May, one among several NOAA products and services to get shuttered by President Donald Trump’s administration this year.
Now, a nonprofit called Climate Central, which communicates climate change science and solutions, has hired the scientist who led the project at NOAA, Adam Smith, and has taken on the responsibility of compiling and releasing the latest data.
In the first six months of 2025, there were 14 disasters with damages costing just over $101 billion in total. Many of them occurred throughout the Mississippi River Basin — states like Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas and Tennessee were among the hardest hit by severe storms and tornadoes, which caused just over $40 billion in damage.
Wisconsin saw $1.1 billion in severe storm damage in early 2025 — part of the more than $5 billion in such damage since 2021.
The January wildfires in Los Angeles resulted in approximately $60 billion in damages, making it the most expensive wildfire on record.
Zachary Labe, a climate scientist at Climate Central, said the Climate Central staff brought back the database because they “were hearing from every single sector how important this data is for decision-making and understanding areas that are increasingly at risk for billion-dollar disasters.”
Among those who have typically relied on the database are policymakers, researchers and local communities. It’s especially important for planning disaster relief and emergency management efforts “because they can focus resources on areas that are seeing big trends in the number of billion-dollars disasters,” Labe said.
Bryan Koon, the president and chief executive officer of the consulting firm Innovative Emergency Management, said the analysis is helpful. His company works with government agencies and other organizations to help with disaster preparedness, response and recovery.
“These kinds of data sets are very important in the broad scope, at least from my perspective, for trend analysis,” Koon said.
In states like Missouri, for example, he said his company and other interest groups can analyze previous billion-dollar disaster data on tornadoes and their frequency over the past decade or two. That information can be used to inform how insurance companies write their policy, how buildings are designed and how notification systems are structured.
“I want to make sure that we, as a nation, wrap our arms around as much information about these things as we can so that we communicate the threat of future disasters for Americans,” Koon said.
The Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative — a cooperative of more than 100 communities between Minnesota and Louisiana — pushed the Trump administration to keep the database open, according to the cooperative’s executive director, Colin Wellenkamp.
“It was a critical database that showed us where costs associated with disasters were most impactful. What sectors of the economy were hit the hardest by a disaster? Whether it be intense heat, flooding, drought, forest fire, named storm event, or otherwise,” Wellenkamp said.
From a cost-benefit analysis standpoint, said Wellenkamp, the database can tell cities, counties and states how to spend resources on mitigation to avoid incurring similar costs from future disasters. But industries like manufacturing, construction and agriculture also want to see the data, he said. That’s because the database’s financial impact analysis includes physical damage to commercial and residential property, losses associated with business interruption and crop destruction, damage to electrical infrastructure, and more.
Other stakeholders that see the value of the database are both the insurance and re-insurance industries.
Franklin Nutter is the president of the Reinsurance Association of America, one of the largest trade groups in the country. The goal of reinsurance is to provide insurance for the insurance companies, stabilizing the industry and playing a role in “the financial management of natural disaster losses,” according to the RAA’s website.
“It’s like an iceberg: the public is made aware of the impact of extreme weather by seeing the graphics (the tip of the iceberg) but most commercial users value the underlying data (the body of the iceberg),” said Nutter by email.
While the billion-dollar disaster data is valuable to various financial stakeholders, Nutter said he believes its greatest value comes from providing “public awareness of the increasing extreme weather risk.”
There are many factors that come together to make a billion-dollar disaster — such as weather, infrastructure, population, and location. Labe said that the number of events has been increasing since 1980.
“It’s very likely that 2025 will not be the costliest year on record when we look at the statistics, but it definitely falls into this long-term increasing trend,” he said.
Climate Central is not the only organization trying to pick up the pieces of a resource that was shut down by the federal government or is at risk.
Last month, amid growing concerns over the future of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, the MRCTI announced that it would be partnering with a nonprofit called Convoy of Hope to provide aid within 72 hours of disasters for communities along the Mississippi River.
But Wellenkamp said that there aren’t many states that can afford the response and recovery efforts from a billion-dollar disaster.
“These (initiatives) are not meant to be permanent solutions,” Wellenkamp said. “These are not meant to replace federal capacity. They are meant to put our cities in a relatively secure position until the federal questions are answered. And the sooner that those answers come, the better.”
For many, the answers will require data.
“Just because the federal government decided they’re not going to do it anymore doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing,” Koon said.
This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation. Wisconsin Watch staff added Wisconsin data to this story.
A tool tracking billion-dollar disasters is back after the Trump administration retired it is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
As more homes in the UK move away from gas heating systems, the need for a sustainable but effective method of heating and providing hot water for the home has become paramount. Heat pumps are rapidly emerging as a lead player in the game of decarbonised energy systems. But they are more than just efficient …
The post How Heat Pumps Fit Into the Future Grid appeared first on Alternative Energy HQ.
More federal and legal wrangling over school bus Wi-Fi and emissions regulations, plus bus manufacturing updates. Read the new October issue of School Transportation News magazine and watch our recent webinars.
“I’m thankful I had the job that I had, to do the work that I had, at the time that I did.” Jeremy Stowe, director of transportation for Buncombe County Schools in North Carolina, transports us into the story of when Hurricane Helene hit last September and how student transporters assisted with emergency response and recovery. The dedication of the district’s maintenance team is reflected in the Garage Star award it won this year. Stowe also discusses benefits of vendor partnerships in technology and alternative transportation.
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Federal disaster assistance is available to individuals in Milwaukee, Washington and Waukesha counties who were affected by historic rainfall and flooding last month.
President Donald Trump announced on social media Thursday that Wisconsin will receive $29.8 million in federal disaster relief aid.
The assistance could include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses and other programs to help individuals and families recover from the effects of the storms that occurred Aug. 9-12.
A spokesperson for Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said that how and when the money will be distributed to individuals will be determined by the Trump administration.
People who sustained losses in the designated areas should first file claims with their insurance providers and then apply for assistance online at DisasterAssistance.gov, by calling 1-800-621-3362 or by using the FEMA App.
State and federal officials believe the floods caused more than $33 million in damages to private property in Milwaukee, Washington and Waukesha counties.
The request by Gov. Tony Evers for a presidential disaster declaration also included a request to FEMA’s Public Assistance Program for Door, Grant and Ozaukee counties.
On Friday, FEMA officials announced that additional designations may be made at a later date depending on what damage assessments show.
The Evers administration estimates 1,500 residential structures were destroyed and flooding caused more than $43 million in public sector damage throughout six Wisconsin counties.
“Over the past month, my administration and I have been working hard to ensure the folks and families whose homes, businesses, schools, and community centers were impacted have the support they need to recover,” Evers said in a statement released Thursday evening.
A recent Associated Press data analysis found that disaster survivors are having to wait longer to get aid from the federal government than they did in the past.
This story was originally published by WPR.
FEMA flood relief funds available to residents in Milwaukee, Washington and Waukesha counties is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
Wisconsin will receive nearly $30 million in federal disaster relief to aid victims of last month’s flooding.
President Donald Trump announced Thursday in a social media post that he had approved the state’s request to help Milwaukee and other parts of the state affected by floods. The total approved is $29.8 million.
The approval came one month after historic rainfall caused widespread flooding in southeastern Wisconsin and three weeks after officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency were on the ground in Milwaukee to survey damage.
The storm left flooded streets and basements, downed trees and power outages in its wake. Some residents were left without basic services, and the flooding may have claimed the lives of some people who were homeless.
State and federal officials found the floods caused more than $33 million in damages to private property in Milwaukee, Washington and Waukesha counties. The request by Gov. Tony Evers for a presidential disaster declaration also included a request to FEMA’s Public Assistance Program for Door, Grant, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Washington and Waukesha counties.
In a statement, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson called the approval “a significant stride forward in this area’s recovery efforts.”
U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Milwaukee, spoke on the House floor Thursday to advocate for federal help for the city. In a statement, she said the funds “will help my constituents pick up the pieces, and I will keep fighting for the resources they need until they are made whole.”
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Oshkosh, received the news of the declaration from Trump.
“Thank you to President Trump for continuing to deliver BIG TIME for Wisconsinites,” Johnson wrote on social media.
U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, in a statement said she would “continue to closely monitor to make sure Wisconsin gets everything we need to be on the road to recovery and the whole-of-government recovery effort does right by all Wisconsinites.”
FEMA representatives are scheduled to return to Wisconsin this month to assess damage to public infrastructure. In addition to the damages to private property, initial reports collected by the state found more than $43 million in damage to public property across six counties.
This story was originally published by WPR.
Wisconsin to receive $29.8M in federal aid for flood victims is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
This story is from Floodlight, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action. Sign up for Floodlight’s newsletter here.
In south-central Wisconsin, near-record warmth in January and two record-breaking summer heat waves have cross-country skiers nervous they won’t be getting much snow this winter — again.
And it’s not just skiers in Wisconsin who are worried. New research shows heat waves are prompting a growing number of Americans to make the connection between hotter weather and climate change.
Ski seasons in the United States have shrunk by an average of 5.5 to 7.1 days between 2000 and 2019 compared to the 1960s and ’70s, according to a 2024 study by researchers from Canada and Austria. And in the coming 25 years, ski seasons could be even shorter — by between two weeks and three months — depending on how much the world reduces its greenhouse gas emissions, the researchers said.
Tamara Bryant, executive director of a cross-country ski club in Madison, Wisconsin, has seen this dynamic firsthand — both in her professional and personal lives.
“I remember the winters where my son could build snow forts in the front yard, year after year, and we’re just not getting the same (amount of snow),” she said. “Having a white Christmas is not something we can totally rely on.”
Madison’s chain of lakes also aren’t freezing like they used to, creating hazards for people who fish on the ice.
Hilary Dugan, associate professor in the Center for Limnology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says back in the 1800s, lakes would remain frozen approximately 130 days a year, but now, on average, it’s maybe 75 days a year.
“That’s something that people around here notice because winter is a big part of life,” Dugan said. “Traditionally, winter would start in December (and) it would end probably like April. That meant that you could consistently go out and ice fish, cross-country ski, you know, winter recreation.
“We’re talking months of change — not just a couple of days.”
More than 1,700 miles away in Phoenix, dangerous heat has prompted officials to close the city’s extensive system of mountain trails. But that hasn’t stopped some from hiking in 100-degree-plus weather, leading to emergency rescues and the death of a 10-year-old last year.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found 2024 was the hottest year in its 130-year climate record. NOAA reported the average annual temperature across the contiguous United States in 2024 was 55.5 degrees — or 3.5 degrees above the 20th-century average — heat that it said fueled a near-record number of tornadoes.
Hotter summers and warmer winters are not only disrupting outdoor activities. The record-breaking heat has also been driving national concern about climate change — more so even than dramatic events such as wildfires and hurricanes, according to new research.
Yale’s latest Climate Opinion Maps found that 65% of U.S. adults somewhat or strongly agree that global warming is affecting weather patterns, while 72% of adults nationally think global warming is real.
Its recent study showed that people’s interest in learning more about climate change consistently spikes during weather events like heat waves. And the public’s interest in climate change increases in specific areas experiencing extreme weather events, researchers found.
“Certain weather events — like heat waves — seem to produce consistent jumps in climate change interest across all regions simultaneously,” the researchers wrote, “while others — like wildfires — show more geographic variation.”
The study involved research through Yale’s partnership with Google. The team analyzed online search trends across the country, finding that searches on climate change followed “consistent and predictable patterns.”
Heat waves in 2023 sparked consistent interest in climate change, the study found, while Hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024 garnered an increase in searches only in the places affected by those storms. Similarly, interest in climate change increased during bouts of wildfires in the United States and Canada, but only in the areas most directly affected by the smoke, the study found.
The authors suggest the findings can be used by officials to help people prepare for extreme weather. And, the authors note, “this timing could help the public better understand the need to transition to renewable energy sources, reduce fossil fuels, update risk assessments, increase planning, and strengthen building codes.”
Climate Central’s analysis of heat streaks between 1970 and 2024 found that their frequency has at least doubled in nearly 200 cities across the Southwest, Northeast, Ohio River Valley and southeastern parts of the country — and those heat waves were attributed to greenhouse gas emissions.
The data, released in July by the nonprofit group of scientists and climate researchers, also found heat waves are the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the United States. In 2023, the group reported that 2,325 people in the United States died from extreme heat — a record high.
This heat, Phoenix Fire Department Capt. Rob McDade said, “It’s very dangerous.” In July 2024, a 10-year-old boy died from heat-related injuries while hiking South Mountain Park and Preserve with his family.
In 2021, Phoenix adopted a safety program to restrict access on parts of the city’s 200-plus miles of trails during extreme heat — especially on rugged stretches where it’s more difficult for the fire department to rescue hikers.
“We have more people hiking than ever, and we are seeing rescues that have to happen that definitely are related to the heat,” said Jarod Rogers, deputy director of the city’s Parks and Recreation Department.
Last year, between May 1 and Oct. 13, the city had 45 days of trail closures due to extreme heat. Since adopting the safety program, there have been fewer rescues — from 57 in 2021 down to 35 in 2024.
“The proof is in the pudding,” McDade said. “Setting up these restrictions is dramatically cutting back those extreme (heat) day mountain rescues.”
Rising temperatures are causing a different kind of risk in northern regions. Last winter, Dugan said she repeatedly heard about people being rescued after falling through melting lake ice.
“It felt higher than normal,” she said. “People are willing to go out on the thinnest ice to go get some fish. It’s definitely a passion for people here.”
Skiers are also feeling the burn from a warmer climate. Bryant, executive director for the MadNorSki Club (Madison Nordic Ski), said there has been little snow in recent years, shortening the cross-country skiing season.
Annual snowfall in Madison has decreased over the past three winters from 70 accumulated inches in 2022 to 43 inches in 2023 and 22 inches in 2024.
Bryant said popular ski races have had to cancel because of the lack of snowfall. Some event organizers have resorted to using artificially made snow.
In 2017, organizers of the American Birkebeiner race (“Birkie”), which draws more than 10,000 nordic skiers to northern Wisconsin each year, canceled its cross-country ski races due to lack of snow.
In 2024, another low-snow year, Birkie organizers used snowmaking machines to create a 10-kilometer ski loop instead of the normally linear 50- or 53-kilometer course.
“In the photos, you would see this little white ribbon of snow on the trail, and it was brown everywhere else,” Bryant said, calling the recent lack of snow in Wisconsin “freaky.”
Birkie spokesman Shawn Connelly said the American Birkebeiner Ski Foundation has kept its ski events running thanks to donor funding to purchase the snow-making equipment. “As long as we have the cold, we’ll have the snow,” Connelly vowed, “and we’ll continue to host North America’s largest annual cross-country ski race.”
While the Yale study shows Americans are increasingly concerned about climate change, President Donald Trump’s administration is moving in the opposite direction.
In July, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed rescinding the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which scientifically characterized planet-warming greenhouse gases as a danger to human health and the environment. The ruling was used as the foundation for the federal government’s regulation of emissions from vehicles and power plants for the last 16 years.
The proposal comes after the Trump administration gutted many of the initiatives of former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act that aimed to reduce the country’s climate impact over the next two decades.
Environmental advocates have accused the Trump administration of “burying its head in sand” when it comes to the climate crisis.
“Americans are already suffering from stronger hurricanes, more severe heat waves and floods, and more frequent fires,” Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, said in a prepared statement. “(Americans) are watching these climate disasters get worse (and) the danger to their lives and health intensify.”
Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action.
From ski trails in Wisconsin to hiking paths in Phoenix, extreme heat is reshaping recreation — and our attitudes is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
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