In his 30 years of studying freeze-thaw cycles of lakes in New York State, Kenton Stewart, Ph.D., has never seen some lakes in his lake-ice network stay unfrozen for an entire winter unless it was an El Nino year. But things changed with the winter that officially ended on Wednesday. While the majority of lakes still froze, the professor emeritus of biological sciences says "a surprising number" that developed ice covers in previous winters, had only a partial skim of ice this winter, or did not freeze at all during the winter of 2001-02.