Never thought I'd have so much fun watching ice melt :rolleye2:

The Anchor Marine time lapse view shows noticeable ice retreat in the last few hours. The Minge Cove cam shows growing open water on the horizon. In the last few hours, several other views have gone from whitish to grey and wet.

With no below freezing temps in sight, I would not be surprised if some of those with Ice-Out guesses late this week are in the running.

I don't think it's a matter of if we have another record early ice-out. It's more when.

Is Sebago really free of ice?

I Have March 23 @ 9am , its not looking to bad :D

With the ice disappearing so quickly I guess I better get around to replacing the impeller in my stern drive. I know what I'll be doing on Saturday. :rolleye1:

Gen 2 Alpha? Those last forever.

You might be boating!!! :eek:

Dan

Not a chance, it will never make it to the 23rd

Sebago is a very deep lake and there are winters when it does not freeze. This was one of those winters. It is not that unusual.

R2B

If the readings are to be believed, the 2 foot water temperature measurement on the WeatherCam page has shot up several degrees today, and it showing about the same temperature as the 10 foot probe (~39 degrees). The 10' probe was also registering over 40 this morning. So it appears that we're reaching the point where the colder and warmer layers are mixing to create a uniform temp from top to bottom, which happens for a short period in the Spring.

Wouldn't own anything else! It's an '03 Alpha I Gen 2

I've had a new impeller for it sitting on my workbench now for over a year and keep putting it off. Couple of hours in the garage pre-season beats a blown engine in the middle of the summer. ;)

My last boat with a 94 Alpha I Gen 2 went 10 years before I replaced the impeller and it was probably still OK and my current boat will probably be in the same condition but having a new one in there is piece of mind I guess more than anything else. Heck it's a $20.00 part. I learned my lesson last time and didn't needlessly buy the entire housing kit.

Is the lake in the center of the photo, where it is mostly white and then a dark spot in the lower left of the white area?

I love these photos. Thank you for posting them.

Silver Sands page is up
 

Here is the link. I will have the link on my ice out page later tonight at www.rattlesnakecam.com/iceout.htm

http://nhboat.com/Nhboat/Features/ice/ice-out2012.htm.. Thanks to Barry for doing this every year!

IG

Yup, that's the lake!;)

This all has to do with the density of water. Pure water is most dense at 39.2 degrees F. When the water well below the surface goes over 39.2 degrees, it floats to the top slowly displacing the cooler water close to the surface. People call it flipping. Once the lake flips, the ice melts very fast from the bottom up. CLAs two probes, on his Black Cat weather site, clearly are showing this process yesterday and today.

I am now thinking this weekend will be ice-out, but I have been wrong before.

R2B

My eyesight is not as good as it once was, however, watching from Texas there is still lots of ice out there! If your prediction should turn out to be true, we'll send you some longhorn bucks from here! :) :laugh:

Terry
_____________________________

It sure is!!!
 

Sebago never froze this year and it doesn't freeze completely 3 out of every 10 years. Some of my friends think we have hot springs somewhere. The real issue is depth of the water(300+ feet in places) and wind.

BT

Absolutely Correct!!

Yes. The dark spot is open water near Rattlesnake Island.

Thanks R2B.

While a bit detailed, a good description of lake flip, or turn over, can be found here.

http://www.waterontheweb.org/under/l...ification.html

In both cases, the phenomenon is very helpful to the ecology of the lake, bringing necessary nutrients up from the bottom of the lake, and mixing the oxygen levels.

I never go near it in the Winter, so I never noticed. Huh, thanks.

Those are great drives. The "floppy vane" impeller design change when they went to gen 2 was brilliant. I know some people hate changing the impeller in the drive, but it's a lot easier than changing the impeller on my engine in my Bravo 3 equipped boat. That Bravo pump is in an awful place to access and the impeller is only good for 2 seasons max. The only plus is that I don't have an oily mess to deal with when I change it.

Time Lapse Video
 

Hi everyone, I'm new to the board as a contributor, but have been reading it for years. I setup a webcam at my house to monitor the progress of Ice-Out this year. It takes an image every 20 minutes during daylight hours and uploads it to a website I created that shows a time lapse video. I've only captured a few days so far, but I will continue to capture the images this entire month. Here's the link if you are interested. You can pause the slide show or select a specific image by just hovering over the image or the markers underneath the image.

http://ec2-23-21-133-74.compute-1.am....com/slideshow

(Note that if you are using Internet Explorer version 8 or lower, the site will prompt you to install a small Google plug-in called ChromeFrame - which is necessary for the animation)

Mike

Back on topic!
 

The Lakeport lake temperature today is 39 degrees! (insert Snoopy Dance here). Ice out is definitely accelerating. Going to be a new record, for sure. I picked March 20th and that may be a late guess.

Hi Mike;

Thanks for the web cam!! Just curious where on the lake is this??

Dan

Gonna move this discussion over to the boat maintenance part of the forum, great stuff to talk about, just don't want to pollute the ice out thread.

Speaking of, for the first time this morning I noticed that good old "spring smell" in the air. Don't exactly know how to describe it other than that.

Only thing better than that is fresh cut grass smell ;-)

Bring it on!

I guess up in narrows of Marlborough Bay.

Hi Dan,

It is in the channel between Ambrose Cove and Moultonborough bay, just around the corner from Buzzel Cove.

Mike

You must be near the Clark's Landing / Bon Aire cottages?

On the Ice-Out page
 

I linked to this time lapse from the ice-out page along with a link to the Silver Sands daily picture. This way you can always find them.... and the other Winnipesaukee WebCams.

IG

soon, very very soon

Sorry, but I had to change the URL of the site (and it might have to change again - I'm trying to figure out where to host it without paying too much money for the hosting site). Your best bet is to put a link to my comcast site on the ICE-OUT page. My comcast site has a link to the webcam time lapse that I will keep updated and will always be correct. It is:

http://home.comcast.net/~mscopa

From that page, just click the "Lake Winnipesaukee Time Lapse Video" link. Sorry about the change.

Mike

The link to the time lapse video is fixed on Ice-Out page
 

Thanks for the update... I have replaced the link with the one you just posted.

IG

I have March 30th at 3pm, think i am going to be over by a day or two, or three

I like your thinking...my guess is the 28th.
I am going for two in a row, I had the day right last year but was 6 hours off.

Ice Out
 

Yesterday's fly over revealed that the shorelines have receded a little bit more and the open water that I witnessed on Friday have grown just slightly. The Ice has blackened but still remains intact. I am predicting that we will not have "Ice out" before the first day of spring. Definitely early but no record...I think.

Hi David;

Isn't the first day of spring March 20th? Wouldn't that be a record??

Thanks for the great info on the flyovers!!

Looking forward to ice out!

Dan

Pics?
 

David

Any pics from the flyover?

Despite the speed at which the ice cubes melt in my drink on a 60 degree day, I'm always surprised at how long it takes the ice pack to disappear.

While the ice may look weak and much darker on the webcams, it is still surprisingly strong. I threw a softball-sized bolder high into the air and onto the ice in front of my property today. It bounced and barely made a dent. While I wouldn't walk on it, I estimate that the ice pack is still ~3" in many areas.

Yes it is erroding each hour, and no freezing temps in sight. But there is still a lot of hard, dense, ice out there, and it will be awhile before it goes away.

Need wind. If there are some good size holes and cracks in it nothing gets rid of it faster than a good 2 day blow.

Everyone think Ice Melting Thoughts!
 

Think about: Hot peppers.. Arizona in July... Coffee... Lava... Fireworks... S'mores!

:) Very soon now..... the ice will wave the white flag.... :)

What a fun time! I need to go give the old boat it's spring pep talk!

Did anyone
 

notice the sheet of ice moving around on the Minge Cove time lapse? Mostly from the morning shots. It's good when they start moving around.:)