Years ago at this time of year.....

[HomeWood]

....my dad and I would play "ice breaker" with the aluminum row boat. One year a fiberglass bass boat followed us in the channel we made. This was Thanksgiving weekend. Then we would be ice fishing before Christmas.

And now I worry every year if the Rotary fishing derby will be held on time.

[Belmont Resident]

Originally Posted by HomeWood

....my dad and I would play "ice breaker" with the aluminum row boat. One year a fiberglass bass boat followed us in the channel we made. This was Thanksgiving weekend. Then we would be ice fishing before Christmas.

And now I worry every year if the Rotary fishing derby will be held on time.

Be careful someone might think your talking about global warming…..
Normally by this time I’m looking forward to the snow and snowmobiling and plowing.
This year I’m all for keeping it warm. I’m still working outside painting a new house under construction in Moultonborough.
I’m sure builders, painters and anyone else working outside is really liking these above normal temps as well.
It's 31 outside here in Belmont as of 5:20am

[ishoot308]

Originally Posted by HomeWood

....my dad and I would play "ice breaker" with the aluminum row boat. One year a fiberglass bass boat followed us in the channel we made. This was Thanksgiving weekend. Then we would be ice fishing before Christmas.

And now I worry every year if the Rotary fishing derby will be held on time.

In my fifty years on this earth and a full time resident of NH, I only remember one time where there was ice in late December on Winni. January 1st has also always been the first legal day of ice fishing the lake for as long as I can remember...???

[HomeWood]

Originally Posted by ishoot308

In my fifty years on this earth and a full time resident of NH, I only remember one time where there was ice in late December on Winni. January 1st has also always been the first legal day of ice fishing the lake for as long as I can remember...???

This was in the 1980's, so maybe we weren't ice fishing (guess I cant really remember from 20+ years ago, my sincere apologies), but I know I've walked around on the ice before Christmas. We are in Moultonborough neck and I know that is one part of the lake that locks up first or quicker.

I was NOT trying to start a global warming discussion! We used to drill through 20+ inches of ice. Now I'm happy to see 10 inches of ice.

This is the weather section, so I thought it was appropriate to discuss my observations of the amount of ice in recent winters (since ice amounts are affected by the weather).

[Belmont Resident]

Originally Posted by HomeWood

This was in the 1980's, so maybe we weren't ice fishing (guess I cant really remember from 20+ years ago, my sincere apologies), but I know I've walked around on the ice before Christmas. We are in Moultonborough neck and I know that is one part of the lake that locks up first or quicker.

I was NOT trying to start a global warming discussion! We used to drill through 20+ inches of ice. Now I'm happy to see 10 inches of ice.

This is the weather section, so I thought it was appropriate to discuss my observations of the amount of ice in recent winters (since ice amounts are affected by the weather).

I wasn't trying to side track your post, just adding a little humor.
Things are changing and not always for the better.

[JTA]

There was one winter (I think it was in the 80's) when I was able to walk from Harilla Landing to the Barber's Pole side of Cow Island in December. Every winter seems different to me. Oh ... now I'm in Florida, have fun you all!

[HomeWood]

Originally Posted by Belmont Resident

I wasn't trying to side track your post, just adding a little humor.
Things are changing and not always for the better.

I know. I got it. I agree, something is changing. I remember the 2006 ice fishing derby. There was no snow and thin ice was everywhere. Last year was great except for all the slush on the lake.

[Belmont Resident]

There was a year recently that Moosehead Lake was deemed unsafe for snowmobiles into February. They mark the trail across when there is 8 inches or greater of ice from point A to point B.
We are nearing December this year without any frost in the ground.
I do hope it stays warm for another 3 weeks but I doubt I could be that lucky.

[SteveA]

Always interesting to check with the "experts"



"A very active storm track will bring much heavier-than-normal precipitation from the Southern Plains through Tennessee into Ohio, the Great Lakes, and the Northeast. Because of above normal temperatures, much of the precipitation will likely be rain or mixed precipitation, although, during February, some potent East Coast storms could leave heavy snow, albeit of a wet and slushy consistency."

http://www.farmersalmanac.com/weathe...nter-forecast/

I love these guys...the PT Barnum of the weather forecasting business. Sorta like putting up a map of New Hampshire and predicting that "someplace in the the Northeast, someone will get married, and someone will have a car accident and some people will lose power in 2012" and claiming 100% accuracy! Hey it's a formula that has sold millions of magazines... ( I wish I had thought of it! )

[Lakegeezer]

When I moved to New England in the late 70's, the first few years taught me that winterization chores should be done by November 1. Perhaps that was an unusually cold period, but over the last 30+ years, that "deadline" has slipped to Thanksgiving. This year, the snowstorm caught me a bit unprepared, but luckily it was just a warning and all melted. In watching the ice freeze for 20 years, it is pretty normal to see it safe for walking by New Years day (same area as Homewood). Some years a few days before, and three or four years, it wasn't safe until after.

This thread got me thinking about the water temperature decline. I pulled the data from the water temperature pages on this web site and played around with graphing November/December water temperatures over the years. My skills with the reporting tools leave something to be desired, but the results are interesting to ponder. It is hard to pick any trends out of only 11 years of data, but overall, the grouping seems pretty tight with a few outliers. This year is starting out on the "above average" side of things.

[SteveA]

Originally Posted by Lakegeezer

This thread got me thinking about the water temperature decline. I pulled the data from the water temperature pages on this web site and played around with graphing November/December water temperatures over the years.

Nice Information!

[ITD]

When I was young, I used to walk to school in the snow, barefoot. And it was uphill, both ways!!!

[RailroadJoe]

ITD Was that you I was walking with?

[ITD]

We're we pushing a boulder up the hill?

[HomeWood]

That's a great way to look at it LG. The red line for 2006 shows why the ice was so poor that year.

I have a photo of my sister and I standing in the front yard by the lake one Thanksgiving. It was taken in the mid 1980's. There was snow on the ground and there was ice on the lake in front of the house. It couldn't have been more than 1 inch, but it was ice.

[CanisLupusArctos]

Those of you who remember early December lake ice are probably thinking of December 1989. That was a record-cold month in a lot of places throughout the central and eastern US. I was observing weather in the Boston area at the time, and measured 4 inches of snow at Thanksgiving, followed by a low of minus-4 (F) the next morning (by radiational cooling.) That kind of cold continued for most of that December. The lake was frozen by mid-December that year.

December 1989 still serves as a comparison for any cold wave that occurs in the central and eastern US.

You may also remember the winters of 1992-1995, which were known for being very cold and snowy around here. Weather geeks sometimes call them "the Pinatubo winters," because Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines had gone off (spectacularly), putting an ash cloud in the upper atmosphere where it filtered out sunlight for a while. There have been volcanic eruptions lately but nothing like Pinatubo (thankfully,) because that cold spell reduced crop yields on a large scale. As you may have noticed from supermarket prices lately, we don't have room in our wallets for "cold surprises" like Pinatubo eruptions anymore.

January 2004 was another famous, record-breaking, record-setting cold spell in New England.

Human memories are a funny thing. I recently went back in official weather records to find the snow and cold I remember, but the numbers I found are not as impressive as I thought they'd be. For example, if you remember an entire winter being cold, that's probably not the case, because in New England that almost never happens. It's always changing patterns. Your memory of a certain type of weather might be of just one storm, or just one week/month, and over time your brain expands it ("The Fish Story" concept.)

There are numerous cycles that affect the weather we get, we haven't discovered them all yet (some are beyond earth, in space) and these cycles can form more combinations than paint colors at Home Depot. Therefore it is hard to predict their repetitions. We could re-enter a cycle from 10 years ago, but this time around it could be combined with another cycle from 50 years ago, and the last time those two cycles coincided might have been 500 years ago. That's a simplified example.

As if the above cycles weren't enough to render the Rotary Derby's conditions totally unpredictable, there are even more factors influencing the lake ice. The freeze and thaw dates, and the integrity of the ice all winter long, depends on even more factors, in which timing makes a big difference. One example: If you have a big snowstorm just days after the ice freezes, it could render the ice weak for the rest of the winter no matter how cold the air gets. Snow is an insulator, and it doesn't form very strong lake ice. The strongest ice occurs when the lake lies still (no wind), in extreme cold, for a couple of weeks at the shortest days of the year, clear skies and calm wind every night, without any snow accumulating on it.

In mid-January the sun starts to get noticeably higher in the sky (the shortest day/lowest sun of the year is the first day of winter in December). About a month after the shortest day, the sun starts to play a melting role on the lake ice. At that point it is necessary to have a good layer of snow on the ice to insulate it from the sun.

Moral of the story: With so many factors influencing the local weather, and even more factors influencing the lake ice, whatever conditions happened in any Rotary Derby of the past are probably not due for an exact repeat. At all.

[Pineedles]

I remember December 1989 very well. It was the month and year that my 65 year old Maine born and bred father died. Not a good year, as I was traveling almost weekly to check on his stability. No, not a good year at all.

[KTO]

Originally Posted by Belmont Resident

Be careful someone might think your talking about global warming…..

I'm fairly confident that the concept of global warming consists of seasonal extremities, meaning that the summer would be hotter than usual while winters would be colder and stormier than usual. In some ways, this refutes that idea.

I'm not sparking a global warming debate, just trying to calm your worries if anything. As the charts show, every year is different!

[VitaBene]

Originally Posted by ITD

When I was young, I used to walk to school in the snow, barefoot. And it was uphill, both ways!!!

Wow, you went to school with my mom too!