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Updated: Jan. 28, 9:36 a.m. | Posted: Jan. 27, 2:31 p.m.

Warm weather is melting away the fun for many outdoor enthusiasts.

The Minneapolis Park Board has cancelled outdoor skating at rinks throughout the city. St. Paul has shuttered skating at its non-refrigerated rinks. The U.S. Pond Hockey Championships are off. An ice fishing contest in north-central Minnesota has gone hybrid and several dog sled races have been delayed or cancelled.

On Thursday, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts unveiled nearly a dozen ice sculptures inspired by works in its collection.

By Saturday, water dripped from the nose of a frozen horse inspired by a Chinese bronze sculpture titled, “Celestial Horse.” An ice sculpture of a male torso, inspired by a Greco-Roman marble titled “Torso of a Dancing Faun” had lost its definition.

Art Shanty Projects on Lake Harriet in Minneapolis

 continued to attract visitors. Molly Murnane, 40, of St. Louis Park, was there with her husband and daughter.

“I feel like if you live in Minneapolis, you just plan for everything,” she said.

Neal Sorensen, Art Shanty Projects board member, says the shanties were installed when it was cold, but the unseasonably mild weather is causing organizers to adjust. 

“It made us pay more attention to the ice,” Sorenson said. “We’re monitoring it daily, making sure we know what the thickness of the ice is. It’s something we’re paying a lot of attention to. We’ve being very careful about it.”

After shifting the opening date to a week later, the event opened Saturday and is scheduled to last through Feb. 11. 

On its Facebook page, Art Shanty Projects posted photos of staff members measuring the ice thickness. “We’re open!” organizers wrote. “Don’t believe the trolls. see ya today!!!”

The low temperature at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport was 31 degrees on Saturday morning. High temperatures on Saturday are expected reach the upper 30s, well above freezing. By Monday, the National Weather Service is predicting high temps in the 40s.

Correction (Jan. 28, 2024): An earlier version of this post misidentified the position of those measuring ice thickness for Art Shanty Projects. The article has been corrected.

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Minneapolis and St. Paul are closing non-refrigerated rinks to skaters. Meanwhile the organizers of the Art Shanty Projects on Lake Harriet encourage visitors, as they monitor conditions. 

An ice sculpture in the middle of a brown green field near the museum.

Warm weather melts some outdoor fun in Twin Cities

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