Snow on open water?
 

I keep hearing that you need to be careful on the lake because in some parts there is snow sitting on top of open water. That does not make any sense to me. Can anyone tell me if that occurs and how? Or is it impossible?

Snow cannot sit on water, however there are a lot of areas with very thin ice as mentioned in earlier posts.
Someone did a video of what they found heading out to Rattlesnake, ice went from 6 or 8" to 2 inches. They turned back.
Remember not very long ago there was still open water in many places.
Read through the posts about ice in.
LSP= Lake shore park? One of the open areas was off of Lake Shore park if I remember correctly.

Lake shore park
 

Thanks! Sorry if that was a stupid question. Yes, I have been reading these posts and checking the webcams obsessively for weeks now so I think I am up to date on the ice conditions. 8 of my girlfriends and I are heading up to LSP next weekend for our 6th annual girls ice fishing weekend. I'm hoping the ice holds out for us. Some of my friends have their bobhouses off the shores of LSP right now, and they usually know what they are doing.
That spot off of welch island has been touch and go all year, and while in past years we have snowshoed/skated out to the island, we are not doing it this year! From photos I saw earlier today, it looks like there aren't as many bobhouses off of ellacoya as usual. Nor the usual parking lot on the ice. The last two years have been pretty weird out there.
Anyways, I'm very excited to get out of NYC and head up to the open skies and fresh air of lake winnipesaukee! Woohoo!

Like Ice
 

I was up on the lake with my B-I-L on Friday and Saturday. Drove 2 ATV's over from Minge Cove to Rattlesnake Island. For the most part the snow was soft, 6 to 8" deep, there were a few spots where there was water under the snow on top of the ice. Of course we did not slow down, once we started moving we keep going. As we approched the Island, it's a straight shot out of Minge to his house, we noticed some open water by the neighbors dock. We stopped about 150 ft. from the shore and walked in. No problem, but just to be sure we took a brick hammer and bar an chopped a hole in the ice. It was 4" thick, then some water, then another 4" of ice. We drove the ATV's across to the beach and up into the yard. Again no problem. We spent the night, had a big burn pile to get rid of, Saturday morning at 8:30 we headed back. This time the snow had more pockets of slushy than the day before, it was 25 dg out. Saw, heard a lot of sleds, a few ATV's, but no truck out on the big part of the lake. Saturday night it went down to 15 so I would guess all th slush frozen over.

Just be safe out there.

I'd love to go ice fishing with 8 girlfriends.:laugh: