Loading Is the Ice Forming?…
How much cold has built up on the canals and lakes this freeze — and how far that is from ice the club would call skateable. It never says the ice is safe; only IJsclub Giethoorn, after measuring, can.
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No ice — open water
no cold spell running · Giethoorn
Every hard frost brings people onto Giethoorn's canals — but nobody has measured the ice, and snow ice can look solid while it isn't. This won't tell you the ice is safe. What it does show is how much cold has actually built up on the water this freeze, and how far that is from what the ice club looks for before anyone skates.
Right now
No ice — the water is open.
No cold spell is running. Nothing is forming.
A physics rule of thumb (h ≈ 2.7·√ of the cold built up) for the calmest, clearest, snow-free water. Real ice — on a moving canal, on a wind-stirred lake, and snow ice above all — is thinner and weaker than this. It is not a measurement.
No freeze is in the forecast — the water stays open.
| Day | Avg temp | Cold built up |
|---|---|---|
| Tue 25 Aug | 17°C |
| 0 |
| Wed 26 Aug | 18°C | 0 |
| Thu 27 Aug | 20°C | 0 |
| Fri 28 Aug | 18°C | 0 |
| Sat 29 Aug | 17°C | 0 |
| Sun 30 Aug | 18°C | 0 |
Daily temperatures for Giethoorn, as of 24 Aug, 3:51, from Open-Meteo (CC BY 4.0).
This reads the weather, not the ice
Freezes first
Freezes much later
KNMI (ijsdikte en schaatsijs) and KNSB tour-ice guidance · checked Sun 5 Jul
IJsclub Giethoorn — The village's natural-ice club, going for well over a century. When the ice is reliable it sweeps and marks lanes (banen) and lights the rink at the Molengat on the Kerkweg, and it posts the ice status on its Facebook and X (@ysclubgiethoorn) pages. If a route is open, they are the ones who will have measured it and said so.
Snow ice looks thick but isn't
White, snowy ice (sneeuwijs) can be twice as thick as clear black ice and far weaker — 4 cm of black ice can hold more than 6 cm of snow ice. In February 2021 the ice master for the Overijsselse Merentocht warned that Giethoorn's ice was 'genuinely dangerous… snow ice, you don't hear it crack' at about 6 cm, while people skated on it anyway.
You skate at your own risk, and there are no marked routes
Unless the ice club has swept and marked lanes, there is no safe route and nobody checking the ice for you. The canals pass under bridges and past gardens where the ice is thinner, and thin ice a step away from thick ice is exactly how people go through.
The lakes are not the canals
A hard-frozen Dorpsgracht does not mean the Wieden lakes are safe. The open water freezes later and unevenly. The long tour ice — Rond de Wiedentocht — needs a sustained, deep freeze that the sheltered canals reach first by a wide margin.
If someone goes through the ice
Each day below freezing adds to a running total of "freezing-degree-days"; a thaw takes it away, and once a warm spell wipes it out the count starts again. The rough ice estimate applies a standard growth formula to that total for ideal, snow-free water. Daily temperatures come from Open-Meteo. None of it is a measurement of your ice.
Source: KNMI, KNSB and IJsclub Giethoorn; cold-buildup model from Open-Meteo, checked 5 July 2026 (last month).