This week's surge in temperatures is quickly melting away much of the lower Chesapeake Bay's ice cover, according to data from the National Ice Center.
Amid mid-February's stretch of record cold -- including a six-day stretch below freezing from Feb. 15-20 -- portions of the bay was more than 90 percent covered with ice. Along the Eastern Shore, branches of the estuary including the Choptank and Chester rivers were fully ice-covered.
While that ice has gradually broken up and melted since then, the melting accelerated once temperatures warmed this weekend, ice center maps show. Highs reached the mid-40s Saturday and lower 50s Sunday.
Most of the waters along the Eastern Shore between the Bay Bridge and Crisfield were at least 10-30 percent ice-covered as of Friday, but the lower section of Maryland's portion of the bay was largely ice free by Monday, according to the National Ice Center.
Still, much of the northern waters north remained icy – more than 90 percent ice-covered between the Bay Bridge and the Patapsco River as of Monday.