The big storm tomorrow is all the talk in the line at the grocery store as people stock up on toilet paper and wine. But how much damage will it do? Will the snow which is due to be the final precip to fall, wet out in the preceding rain? Will the cold snap Saturday night flash freeze the resulting mixture?

The way we see it is that the tail end snow will fall into water forming a delightful slurry that will freeze hard overnight and give an excellent surface for Sunday. Then there’s the wind forecast. Yes, it will be windy, but suppose we call the day the Denis Guertin High Wind Mast Memorial Sail? Bring your toughest mast and storm sail.

The venue will be Lake St. George, site of last year’s closing sail. The lake appears to be in excellent shape, with no open water visible anywhere after an extensive scout. The ice is 16” thick and looks to be very high quality.

Here’s the view down a fishing hole. There is a skim of shell on top of the plate, but under that the ice was hard today even with the temps at 45.

The launch it tight to the plate, and don’t forget that the parking lot and launch ramp are paved. A big deal this time of year.

Below, the first bay after leaving the long stretch from the launch:

It looks like this will be the last hurrah for local ice as the daytime temps hit fifty most days next week, although Monday will still be cool enough and might give us a second day. So I urge everyone to take a drive, take a chance, and show up. It could be epic. There will be no updates as we won’t know what we got until we’re at the launch ramp Sunday morning.