Lake Mendota, the largest lake in Madison, WI, is considered one of the most studied lakes in the US. This visualization highlights the freezing and thawing cycles of the lake, allowing users to explore the number of days per winter when the lake was frozen during the last 160 years.

The large lined circle is the average days frozen for that decade. The small satellite circles are the individual years, sized by number of days. Click on the small circles to see more about each year. The season is marked by it's end year, for instance, the winter of 1959-1960 would be captured as 1960 for brevity.

diagram here