Chickawaukie Ice Boat Club

Merry Christmas, CIBC. Under the tree this morning is a large fine lake with 6-8″ of hard re-frozen snow melt. A little rough in places but very sailable. There’s a large patch of black ice in the middle of the broads which was not checked, but pending diplomatic concessions at the home hearth, it might be possible to make a further inspection this afternoon with the idea of setting up boats tomorrow. Bog Bridge launch is a bit of a mess with snow banks making access difficult. It also has not fully wet out but the frozen snow crust appears to hold up to a runner that I sat on, so this would be the best launch site. Stand by for confirmation!

Looking east across the broads.

Looking North up the Western Reach.

10F at 10 AM Chicky patches of shiny granular grey ice and white hard snow. The snow is up to 1 inch thick with underlying punky frozen slush 2 inches thick, wet slush a couple of inches, and black ice 3-4
inches under it all. Shiny parts hard 2 in. frozen slush, back of axe bounces off this but sounds hollow. The hollow is slush and water and then black ice 3-4 inches thick I think. I did get through it and total thickness 8 inches when it all get welded together solid.

The snowy stuff would be hard to sail through and seems to be 1/2 of the surface. This may change with sun and warming daytime temps later in week. This stuff is skatable on the shiny parts with fortitude. Ice for sailing grade 0.25. I only went out 2-300 yards from my beach at North end. There may be new thin ice at other end.

Merry X Mass, Iceman

Ron Buzzell called in today to report four to five inches of very nice ice on Lake Sunnapee. Their thin layer of snow was wet out by the rain yesterday, froze last night with no shell, and the forecast calls for smooth sailing for at least a week with some single digit nights promising good icemaking. The surface is good to fair. He checked at the southern launch at the state park, but reports that the main body of the lake if frozen, too, but not checked.

Perhaps Will Tuthill will check in with some observations on north end.

BOOTS IN THE SLUSH-CHICKAWAUKEE

We are now some 4 days since we got 18 inches of snow on top of 10 inches from a few days before that. Is there any hope? Yes, it has been warm, 30’ to 40s and drizzling with ½ inch of rain, some freezing last night and continuing today Dec 22.

The ice is sinking as predicted.  Will all the snow wet out before “seasonal” cold weather returns on the 24^th?  Yesterday there were large patches of grey slush 5-6 inches deep over maybe 3 inches of black ice, not much of a foundation.  This was known and skated ice a week or so ago, I did not venture further.  The wetting out under the snow extended 50 Ft from the visible slush and the overlying snow had firmed up some so that sometimes I was walking on it, then it would give way, disconcerting.  There are widely scattered reverse drain holes where water is welling up from underneath the ice from the weight of the snow on top.

Now the wetted out areas are much larger, 2 days later, and the underlying slush extends to the shore, still 5-6 inches deep. It is supposed to remain near 32 F until Tuesday when it will get cold, single numbers, for several days during and after Christmas.  The surface of the existing slush is slightly frozen and there is possibility of maybe grade 8 granular with some wave pattern from blown snow, very likely worse further down the lake.  Will the whole mess freeze solid? Yes, sooner or later, but not likely for the elusive Christmas Regatta.

TWO DAYS AGO

TODAY WITH REVERSE DRAIN HOLE

Iceman

BOOTS IN THE SNOW, Chickawaukee, Wed. Dec 18

          Our forecast 4-8 inches of snow Tuesday PM turned out to be 18 inches, very light fluffy stuff that is going to drift nicely in the coming NW winds.  We had a minimum 6 inches of wind packed snow yesterday on the ice, that brings us up to 24 inches.  The wind will grind up the fluffy stuff into more dense packed drifts, then averaging around a foot.  Temps. are  forecast to climb through the weekend of mixed precipitation and daytime temps in the 30s.  It will all likely turn into a ghastly crunchy mess.

          This morning the “sebagocam.com” of Jordan Bay looks like waves on water so we may well have new ice after Christmas.

Ice Man