Hold on folks. Let's not get all excited about the "ice break up."

Yes, last week's extremely warm temperatures, high winds, and some rain have broken up and mostly moved out the Maumee River (and probably the Sandusky) ice, some of Sandusky Bay is open water, and the Lake ice has has been separated into various ice sheets. BUT - the remaining Lake and marinas ice is still 10-20 inches thick, the ice is still locked in around the Bass Islands, and there are ice fishing shanties back on the ice off the west side of South Bass Island. Remember, Lake Erie got to around 85-90% ice coverage just two weeks ago. That ice is going to take a long time to melt. Lake Forecast to the end of the first week of March (next two weeks) still has a lot of relatively cold days and well below freezing night temperatures. That means the ice isn't going to melt much. It may stay as it is or even gain slightly. Right now, I wouldn't plan to be launching boats until the middle of March at the earliest. Likely later in March.