It's as much a rite of spring as seeing the first robin in your yard: the ice breaks up-- and breaks things-- on Lake Mille Lacs in Minnesota.

While we don't have many any naturally-occurring lakes here in southeast Minnesota, we still know it's a big deal when 'ice out' happens on one of the 10,000 lakes our state is famous for having. (In fact, ice out happened on Lake Minnetonka in the Twin Cities quite a bit earlier than usual this year-- check it out HERE.)

That's because ice breaking up on lakes across northern Minnesota means that spring has finally sprung, and Old Man Winter is packing up his snow and cold and heading out for another year.

But this year, as sometimes happens, the ice didn't just break up on Lake Mille Lacs. (Lake Mille Lacs, by the way, is the HUGE lake in north-central Minnesota, about two hours north of the Twin Cities metro and just under three hours from Rochester.) Thanks to those brisk winds we've had the past couple of days, the ice melted, piled up and was then blown by the wind across the lake onto the southeast shore, where it created some massive ice piles.

Those ice piles then created some serious damage to property owners along the lake. According to this CBS-Minnesota story, those 'ice shoves,' as they're called, broke windows and caused wood on one homeowner's deck near Isle, Minnesota to groan from the pressure. The story said those piles were nearly 30-feet high as they came ashore! Check out the amazing video below...

Listen to Curt St. John mornings from 6 to 10 a.m. on Quick Country 96.5
and afternoons from 2 to 6 p.m. on 103.9 The Doc

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