Ice-out Watch 2005

[GWC...]

May be a little bit longer than webcams hint…

Originally Posted by New Hampshire Union Leader

Many of the Web cams show open water near the shore and pieces of floating, black ice which looks like it is honeycombed and ready to break up at any moment.

But from the air, it is obvious that ice still covers 95 percent of the lake's surface. And, while there are white pressure ridges where the sheets of ice have overlapped one another, the ice in the most wide-open part of the lake near Rattlesnake Island, an area known as "The Broads," is still a mottled white and gray with no visibly open channels, an indication that ice-out won't be taking place over the weekend and probably not until late next week.

Itaru Takada, an Emerson Aviation flight instructor who has been keeping watch on the lake this week while Dave Emerson, the lake's official ice-out observer is spending time in Florida, says that he doesn't think the ice will go out until late next week.

"There's so much ice still there and it's still all together. It's going to take a lot to break it up," says Takada.