Official 2013 Ice-Out Thread

[Belmont Resident]

Channel 7 yesterday said to expect below normal temps and above normal precipitation through the end of this month. It is only March!
Possible major snow or rain storm for Monday into Tuesday.
16 degrees out here in Belmont as I head out to my morning gym routine.

[Bear Island South]

Lets hope for rain...I am sticking with my guess of April 8th for ice-out.

[Bear247]

Originally Posted by Bear Island South

Lets hope for rain...I am sticking with my guess of April 8th for ice-out.

I like the aggressive pick my friend. I really hope it happens...

[Bear Island South]

Originally Posted by Bear247

I like the aggressive pick my friend. I really hope it happens...

By the looks of today's ice, it doesn't look good but change can happen quickly.

[Jeanzb1]

Well, we're planning on leaving Florida on April 4th and arriving at the lake on the 5th -- weather permitting! As long as there is no snow on our little private road, we'll be there! Do you think we're nuts?

[Island Girl]

Originally Posted by Jeanzb1

Well, we're planning on leaving Florida on April 4th and arriving at the lake on the 5th -- weather permitting! As long as there is no snow on our little private road, we'll be there! Do you think we're nuts?

Our passion knows no bounds! Then again, you might want to bring a shovel. This is New England!

[dippasan]

Just knowing the ice out thread is on the forum is enough to get me excited.

Counting the days

[MikeF-NH]

I was thinking April 13th a few days ago but if the long range predictions stick it could drop back into the April 20s. I didn't get my guess into the contest this year because the link never showed on the Ice Out page...bummer.

[Greene's Basin Girl]

Originally Posted by MikeF-NH

I was thinking April 13th a few days ago but if the long range predictions stick it could drop back into the April 20s. I didn't get my guess into the contest this year because the link never showed on the Ice Out page...bummer.

My guess for ice-out is April 17

[Legionnaire70]

I drilled a hole in Alton Bay this morning and there was still 16" of solid ice...

I'd say its gonna be a while before ice out!

[Merrymeeting]

Certainly a long stretch of well below normal temps, and it's going to last until Wednesday or Thursday! No March ice-out this year!

[Just Sold]

This winds were clearing the lake of snow today but there will be plenty of snow added on Tuesday. I was in Alton Bay and even the Merrymeeting River entering the Bay had a thin skim of ice around noon today. Ice Out is a ways off.

[dippasan]

My wife and I walked over to Sleepers Isl yesterday (Saturday) with the dog from near the West Alton sandbar area. The ice was snow covered so the walking was easy and took no more than 10 mins or so. We didn't drill any holes but I used a heavy ice scraper to check it. It sure looked as though the ice was plenty thick the whole way across. Honestly, we probably could have drove over in the truck!!!! We felt that safe. Ice out will probably be a while sorry to say.

Anyway is was good to get out there and check things out and think about the season to come.

[Winnisquamguy]

This is from the Farmer Almanac...I always just like to look at it.

March 2013
16th-19th. Unsettled, gusty winds, with mixed rain and wet snow.
20th-23rd. A major coastal storm with strong winds and heavy precipitation.
24th-27th. Showers from Virginia and Maryland to New England, then fair.
28th-31st. Another coastal storm! More wind, rain and snow, just in time for Easter.

April 2013
1st-3rd. No fooling: very unsettled Mid-Atlantic States through New England, then fair.
4th-7th. More wetness.
8th-11th. Pleasant spell.
12th-15th. Rain unfortunately coincides with Patriot's Day in Massachusetts and Maine.
16th-19th. Sunny skies.
20th-23rd. Windy and showery; squalls along the coast; heavy rain for Mid-Atlantic States. Followed by improving weather.
24th-27th. Sunny and pleasantly mild.
28th-30th. Heavy rains, followed by fair skies.

May 2013
1st-3rd. Fair and dry.
4th-7th. Scattered thunderstorms for Mid-Atlantic States; showers into New England; all followed by clearing.
8th-11th. Very unsettled; widespread thunderstorm activity for Maryland, Virginia.
12th-15th. Clearing and pleasant.

[This'nThat]

Daytime highs in the lower 30's, nighttime lows of 10-15 simply isn't good ice-out weather lately, is it? I'm beginning to wonder which will come first -- ice-out, or bike week?

[Resident 2B]

I made the worse Ice-Out Guess I have ever made. Most weather models show a much colder than normal period for the next ten days with two snow storms possible within the next week.

At this point, if the models are correct, ice out will likely be after April 20.

R2B

[Belmont Resident]

Originally Posted by Resident 2B

I made the worse Ice-Out Guess I have ever made. Most weather models show a much colder than normal period for the next ten days with two snow storms possible within the next week.

At this point, if the models are correct, ice out will likely be after April 20.

R2B

Ya that is what they have been saying for the last week now. Below normal temps through the end of the month.
I'm thinking May something.

[Happy Gourmand]

Originally Posted by Resident 2B

I made the worse Ice-Out Guess I have ever made. Most weather models show a much colder than normal period for the next ten days with two snow storms possible within the next week.

At this point, if the models are correct, ice out will likely be after April 20.

R2B

Of course...I just bought a new boat!!!

[upthesaukee]

You are forgetting the ancient mantra of New England weather..If you don't like it, wait a few minutes...it is bound to change.

[Jeanzb1]

To Phantom Gourmand: We bought our first boat in mid-October and haven't put it in the water yet. We are CHOMPING AT THE BIT for an early ice-out, too. Can't bear hearing late April or early May....ay yi yi.

[This'nThat]

Originally Posted by upthesaukee

You are forgetting the ancient mantra of New England weather..If you don't like it, wait a few minutes...it is bound to change.

Most people tend to attribute that saying to Mark Twain, although I've not seen this confirmed. However, he did give a speech about New England weather at the New England Society's 71st annual dinner, NYC, Dec 22 1876. Here's an excerpt, for your entertainment:

Mark Twain: I reverently believe that the Maker who made us all makes everything in New England but the weather. I don't know who makes that, but I think it must be raw apprentices in the weather-clerk's factory who experiment and learn how, in New England, for board and clothes, and then are promoted to make weather for countries that require a good article, and will take their custom elsewhere if they don't get it.

There is a sumptuous variety about the New England weather that compels the stranger's admiration -- and regret. The weather is always doing something there; always attending strictly to business; always getting up new designs and trying them on the people to see how they will go. But it gets through more business in spring than in any other season.

In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four-and-twenty hours. It was I that made the fame and fortune of that man that had that marvelous collection of weather on exhibition at the Centennial, that so astounded the foreigners. He was going to travel all over the world and get specimens from all the climes. I said, "Don't you do it; you come to New England on a favorable spring day." I told him what we could do in the way of style, variety, and quantity. Well, he came and he made his collection in four days. As to variety, why, he confessed that he got hundreds of kinds of weather that he had never heard of before. And as to quantity -- well, after he had picked out and discarded all that was blemished in any way, he not only had weather enough, but weather to spare; weather to hire out; weather to sell; to deposit; weather to invest; weather to give to the poor.

Yes, one of the brightest gems in the New England weather is the dazzling uncertainty of it. There is only one thing certain about it: you are certain there is going to be plenty of it -- a perfect grand review; but you never can tell which end of the procession is going to move first. You fix up for the drought; you leave your umbrella in the house and sally out, and two to one you get drowned. You make up your mind that the earthquake is due; you stand from under, and take hold of something to steady yourself, and the first thing you know you get struck by lightning. These are great disappointments; but they can't be helped. The lightning there is peculiar; it is so convincing, that when it strikes a thing it doesn't leave enough of that thing behind for you to tell whether-- Well, you'd think it was something valuable, and a Congressman had been there.

And the thunder. When the thunder begins to merely tune up and scrape and saw, and key up the instruments for the performance, strangers say, "Why, what awful thunder you have here!" But when the baton is raised and the real concert begins, you'll find that stranger down in the cellar with his head in the ash-barrel.

[Bear247]

Originally Posted by Bear Island South

By the looks of today's ice, it doesn't look good but change can happen quickly.

Let's hope for some heavy rain this week coming up...

[Belmont Resident]

With the temps as cold as they were last night I noticed areas around Black Cat that were open refroze and the ice looked pretty thick.
Looking at the next week the ice should be rebuilding with those temps down in the mid to low teens at night and only on the mid to low 30's during the day.
As for the storm a lot of us are still looking for that money that last winter shorted us. I'm hoping for a couple of more storms myself.