KMSP - Another cold season has now pretty much passed us by. While the metro area has been ice free for a solid month now, much of northern Minnesota has still had ice around… until now. While there are still a couple of border region holdouts, the state is now ice free which is a good 3 to 4 weeks early. It’s typically the early to middle part of May before the state loses all of its winter remnants. You can think the ridiculously mild winter and early spring for the lack of lake ice late in the season. But just remember that even in warm years, it can STILL snow all the way through May.