It won't be long now....The ice cometh...

[Lakesrider]

Took this picture of the bottom of the bumpers on the docks. Ice was clinging to the bottoms..... We must be getting close. Just too windy lately to get any skin over.

[This'nThat]

I noticed ice in Alton Bay today. And quite a bit. Not thick, obviously, but spread over quite an area near the docks.

[Blue Thunder]

Originally Posted by Lakesrider

Took this picture of the bottom of the bumpers on the docks. Ice was clinging to the bottoms..... We must be getting close. Just too windy lately to get any skin over.

I rain on this parade every year at this time. The water temperature is still hovering around 40 degrees. It will be some time before ice of any significance happens.....sorry. OK, you can start whipping me now.

Blue Thunder

[fatlazyless]

Probably be a good time for me to start think'n about gett'n my boat, dock & boat lift up & out......yooooooooo.......am waiting for a two-day warm streak to hit the area.....like 40's or so.............rock & roll! My latest ever was on a January 5 or something, with the water freez'n up on about the Jan 10.......bad habits never change!

[Merrymeeting]

Originally Posted by Blue Thunder

I rain on this parade every year at this time. The water temperature is still hovering around 40 degrees. It will be some time before ice of any significance happens.....sorry. OK, you can start whipping me now.

Blue Thunder

No rain needed. We'll debate this again come Spring. Ice-out always seems to occur when the water temp gets in the 38-40 range. Seems to be the magic number. Needs to be above for ice-out, and just below for ice-in.

[Island Girl]

Originally Posted by fatlazyless

Probably be a good time for me to start think'n about gett'n my boat, dock & boat lift up & out......yooooooooo.......am waiting for a two-day warm streak to hit the area.....like 40's or so.............rock & roll! My latest ever was on a January 5 or something, with the water freez'n up on about the Jan 10.......bad habits never change!

There was the year it sat on the lift all winter!!!!

IG

[Lakegeezer]

This morning, the temperature is 3 degrees and the thin ice of the new day is frozen all the way across the lake (about 1/3 mile here). There is steam coming off the open water down in M'boro bay, but also some steam coming off of the ice. Or, perhaps the steam is just drifting over the ice from open water to the north. The trees are frosted. Too bad the forecast calls for it to warm up and rain this weekend.

[dpg]

upper forties this weekend in Mass, rain Sunday.

[DRH]

Yesterday Alton Bay was ice almost out to the bandstand.

[Lakesrider]

I saw that too. I thought to myself...well no getting under the bridge, or to the boat ramp anymore.

[Lucy Goose]

Amazing. This was overnight. Taken with my phone so not very good. But it is a thin layer all over the Moultonborough section.

[Lakesrider]

Hey Lucy. actually that is a pretty cool picture. If you see it like I do it kinda looks like a painting.
Too bad you don't blow that up to poster size and sell it....Maybe make $86Mil
on it.

[upthesaukee]

Alton Bay has a skim of ice all the way out to Sandy Point.

Nice talking to you Ropetow.

[This'nThat]

Originally Posted by upthesaukee

Alton Bay has a skim of ice all the way out to Sandy Point.

Yes, indeed. And here are the pictures to prove it. This morning, there was a 2-mile strip of ice 50-75 feet wide down the bay. It was broken up by the wind.

[Ropetow]

Great pix, TnT. Thanks.

[This'nThat]

And just in case anyone needed more proof that ice completely covers the bay, this from Alton Bay's web cam this morning after last night's snow.

[SIKSUKR]

Still there after last nights monsoon?

[Lakegeezer]

Originally Posted by SIKSUKR

Still there after last nights monsoon?

The ice in M'boro bay is gone! There was some slush ice pushing up against the beach, but we went from almost fully iced in to wide open in 24 hours. Maybe it will start again later this week.
THURSDAY UPDATE: Quite a bit of ice back in and north of M'boro bay. It was 9F at 7AM.

[Lakesrider]

When I went through Alton Bay this afternoon there was still Ice. Don't know if it will make through the night with all the rain. Amazed it lasted with all the wind we had. My house was creaking. "Course that could have been my ol' bones instead.

[DRH]

We drove through Alton Bay this afternoon and the ice didn't extend out as far as the bandstand anymore. It seems the ice between the bandstand and Sandy Point had melted or broken up in the wind during the past couple days.

[This'nThat]

Ice in Alton Bay this morning is all the way out to Echo Point, and completely across from shore to shore.

It's ccccoooollld out there!

[This'nThat]

And here are some more Alton ice pictures from this morning.

[fatlazyless]

Just one day....what a dif one day can make....yesterday the Cat-Bear passage had almost zero ice....and today it is iced all the way across....with zig-zaggy ice formations....just like that famous ice bridge between Russia and Alaska!

Don't ya know, I still have not removed my boat...so's if you see someone armed with an ice chopper and a big hammer chopp'n away at that Cat-Bear ice tomorrow in a 16' Alumacraft.....that will be me. Have not started the outboard even once since about April 10, so getting through the ice will probably be secondary to getting the engine started. Hey....some bad habits just never change?

[pcmc]

Thanks for the pic's!!!!!!!!!!

aaAAHHhhh I miss being there..........

sorry to go off topic,...How can some of the docks in the previous pictures withstand the ice without damage. Without any experience on this, I thought they had to be lifted/removed, or bubblers had to keep the ice from crushing the legs or supports. I'm just curious, thanks for any answers.

[Greene's Basin Girl]

Originally Posted by pcmc

Thanks for the pic's!!!!!!!!!!

aaAAHHhhh I miss being there..........

sorry to go off topic,...How can some of the docks in the previous pictures withstand the ice without damage. Without any experience on this, I thought they had to be lifted/removed, or bubblers had to keep the ice from crushing the legs or supports. I'm just curious, thanks for any answers.

I hope the lake freezes soon. My sister cat ,Sunny, keeps running out on the ice. We don't want him to fall in. Tonight on the news they showed a coyote that was stranded on a patch of ice in Lake Michigan. She had to be rescued by a boat.

[Lakesrider]

So are we calling this "Ice In"?

Cause if you look at the first post in my thread.....Welllllllllll......

http://winnipesaukee.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11137

[This'nThat]

Originally Posted by Lakesrider

So are we calling this "Ice In"?

Seems like we could all use a little help, eh?

[fatlazyless]

Looking at the BearCam, it looks like there's enough open water to get to Shep Brown's by going around the outside of Bear Island, via the Bear-Mark Island Passage. The Cattle-Bear passage is totally booked up with about 1/4 mile sheet ice.

Y-Landing to Pine Isl is iced. Beyond Pine and out to Bear it was look'n like open water as of yesterday.

Anyone know about the open water condition of the nwz at the BearCam?

And, still don't know about getting the outboard started? Had to purchase a new fuel line because the primer bulb was hard as a rock from being left in the boat all summer with no gas inside the line, or something.

[Blue Thunder]

Originally Posted by fatlazyless

Looking at the BearCam, it looks like there's enough open water to get to Shep Brown's by going around the outside of Bear Island, via the Bear-Mark Island Passage. The Cattle-Bear passage is totally booked up with about 1/4 mile sheet ice.

Y-Landing to Pine Isl is iced. Beyond Pine and out to Bear it was look'n like open water as of yesterday.

Anyone know about the open water condition of the nwz at the BearCam?

And, still don't know about getting the outboard started? Had to purchase a new fuel line because the primer bulb was hard as a rock from being left in the boat all summer with no gas inside the line, or something.

Not for nothing, Less, but just what do you have a boat in the water for if you don't ever use it?? It hasn't been run since April???? Did you really expect it to start? Sheesh!

BT

[fatlazyless]

Originally Posted by Blue Thunder

Not for nothing, Less, but just what do you have a boat in the water for if you don't ever use it?? It hasn't been run since April???? Did you really expect it to start? Sheesh!

BT

A good question: My excuse for never going out in the motorboat all season was tennis, I caught the tennis bug pretty bad! My little Alumacraft is an incredible fun boat too. It is a 16' aluminum bass boat with a trolling motor up front and a 40-hp outboard.

Turning the ignition key today at about 2-pm for the first time since last April 10 not only started the outboard right up, but also startled a large bald eagle that had been perched in a neighboring huge pine tree. I was very astounded hearing the engine just start right up like that! The engine never-ever missed a beat and it ran like an engine should run the whole trip.....perfectly....no-fool'n! Watching that big eagle silently fly across to Bear Island made me think it was some type of an Indian good luck omen or something.

The openings between Mark and Bear, and Timber and Mark, all looked iced, plus there was some free floating ice around Buoy 3, so I headed around Timber & the witches enroute to the boat ramp at Shep Browns.

Crossing between Bear and Jolly(? or Round ?) there was about 300-yards of sheet ice, which was just a warm up for what lay ahead. Crossing around the north end of Bear, there must have been about 1000-yards of sheet ice on the east side of Bear, and I was so relieved to make it through that I felt compelled to make a touchdown sign in a big triumph as I passed the BearCam location. That open water up ahead was looking real good! Am I crazy? That's a good question! It certainly was something that I do not plan to do again, slicing through all that ice like that. How thick was the ice? I have no clue, but it must have been pretty thin, like maybe 1/2" or something because the 16' V-hull aluminum boat w/ a 40-hp powered right through it all, not too much problem. That was the first time I ever did that so I didn't know what to expect, but definitely will not be doing that again anytime
soon. That was sick!

[Lakesrider]

Yeah right. Next winter we will be calling the Russkies over with this bad boy,



to break way for you....

[CanisLupusArctos]

Originally Posted by pcmc

Thanks for the pic's!!!!!!!!!!

aaAAHHhhh I miss being there..........

sorry to go off topic,...How can some of the docks in the previous pictures withstand the ice without damage. Without any experience on this, I thought they had to be lifted/removed, or bubblers had to keep the ice from crushing the legs or supports. I'm just curious, thanks for any answers.

Ice isn't always terrible to docks. Sometimes it's even better to have your dock frozen in solidly. Our dock has been in there for 40 years with no bubbler. The ice occasionally takes a couple of posts out but "straightening out the dock" has been an annual rite of passage in spring, makes a great excuse to get the swim season started as soon as the water's warm enough.

The worst damage occurs when the ice is not solid, such as in spring. It breaks apart and moves around. Springtime often brings free-floating ice that slams into docks. There is nothing a bubbler can do about that. If the incoming ice is sizeable enough, you can't even divert it with a metal pipe. I've tried that, and found myself sliding backwards in standing position on the dock, pushed by the momentum of the ice against the pipe I was using to try to fend off the ice.

In April 2007 we had decent ice cover on the lake when along came the Patriots Day storm with sustained 45 mph winds and gusts to 64 mph. The ice broke apart and slammed many docks, taking out large pilings.

An interesting thing to note about that event is that docks with bubblers suffered the most damage. Docks that were solidly iced-in got much less damage. The ice around those docks acted as a wall of equal substance that fended off the "incoming battering" ice. Bubbler areas became open water very early in the storm. At the height of the storm, those open-water areas allowed for waves filled with chunks of drifting ice that took a huge toll on whatever docks were in the clear area.

There are also many location factors to consider when you decide how much you want to worry about a dock in winter.

South-facing shores need very little protection because the sun hits them with increasing amounts of light all winter long (the least sunlight of the year occurs on the first day of winter in December, after which the days start getting longer and the sun gets higher in the sky.) Sun heats shoreline and shallow-submerged rocks. The rocks then heat the water & ice around them.

Many parts of the lake are exposed to the weather, which gives the ice a shorter life span than it gets in sheltered areas like coves and bays.

Ice behavior varies from location to location on this lake, just like the weather does. There are some shores that routinely take a beating from the ice. In others, the ice behaves itself most of the time. In exposed areas, the time to worry about dock damage is spring when the ice starts floating around. In sheltered coves and on north-facing shores that get no sunlight even on sunny days, ice may grow even during the daylight hours, which will make it behave altogether differently.

On the south-facing shores, it takes near-record cold weather to get ice to grow in the daytime, and it's not uncommon to see it melting back from rocks as early as February.

[Lake Fan]

Originally Posted by fatlazyless

...

Crossing between Bear and Jolly(? or Round ?) there was about 300-yards of sheet ice, which was just a warm up for what lay ahead. Crossing around the north end of Bear, there must have been about 1000-yards of sheet ice on the east side of Bear, and I was so relieved to make it through that I felt compelled to make a touchdown sign in a big triumph as I passed the BearCam location. That open water up ahead was looking real good! Am I crazy? That's a good question! It certainly was something that I do not plan to do again, slicing through all that ice like that. How thick was the ice? I have no clue, but it must have been pretty thin, like maybe 1/2" or something because the 16' V-hull aluminum boat w/ a 40-hp powered right through it all, not too much problem. That was the first time I ever did that so I didn't know what to expect, but definitely will not be doing that again anytime
soon. That was sick!

Sounds like the lake would skim over faster if Les wasn't out there slicing it all up!

[fatlazyless]

That was most likely between Bear and Treasure Islands as I headed over to Treasure because it looked like it had either a smaller ice area, or hopefully a no-ice area to be boating through. Treasure has the all-wood, old fashioned looking bridge. Mentioning Round Island was just a boo-boo on my part. Jolly is easily identified with its' dock building and nameplate, and the dining building at Camp Lawrence on Bear is another easy id. That was one scary ride, yesterday.....good grief! Was very happy to get into the open water close to Shep Brown's take-out ramp, and hop on my bicycle for a fast peddle home to get the truck & trailer!!

[Lucky2Bhere]

This morning Braun Bay out to Bear Island is totally open again. All the ice present the last couple of days is gone.

[fatlazyless]

Originally Posted by Lucky2Bhere

This morning Braun Bay out to Bear Island is totally open again. All the ice present the last couple of days is gone.

No kidding.....there was quite a lot of ice there two days ago. Every once a year or so, someone does something not-too-bright which causes a fatality on the water. It usually involves adult beverages, but not in my case! I was 100% sober!

[ClosetExtrovert]

Originally Posted by fatlazyless

A good question: My excuse for never going out in the motorboat all season was tennis, I caught the tennis bug pretty bad! My little Alumacraft is an incredible fun boat too. It is a 16' aluminum bass boat with a trolling motor up front and a 40-hp outboard.

Turning the ignition key today at about 2-pm for the first time since last April 10 not only started the outboard right up, but also startled a large bald eagle that had been perched in a neighboring huge pine tree. I was very astounded hearing the engine just start right up like that! The engine never-ever missed a beat and it ran like an engine should run the whole trip.....perfectly....no-fool'n! Watching that big eagle silently fly across to Bear Island made me think it was some type of an Indian good luck omen or something.

The openings between Mark and Bear, and Timber and Mark, all looked iced, plus there was some free floating ice around Buoy 3, so I headed around Timber & the witches enroute to the boat ramp at Shep Browns.

Crossing between Bear and Jolly(? or Round ?) there was about 300-yards of sheet ice, which was just a warm up for what lay ahead. Crossing around the north end of Bear, there must have been about 1000-yards of sheet ice on the east side of Bear, and I was so relieved to make it through that I felt compelled to make a touchdown sign in a big triumph as I passed the BearCam location. That open water up ahead was looking real good! Am I crazy? That's a good question! It certainly was something that I do not plan to do again, slicing through all that ice like that. How thick was the ice? I have no clue, but it must have been pretty thin, like maybe 1/2" or something because the 16' V-hull aluminum boat w/ a 40-hp powered right through it all, not too much problem. That was the first time I ever did that so I didn't know what to expect, but definitely will not be doing that again anytime
soon. That was sick!

You are officially certifiable. And not in a bad way.

[John A. Birdsall]

the ice on the front of the boathouse was extensive last year. and it broke a board in the middle of the dock. The lake is not deep at our boathouse, in fact it is a job to get the boat in the boathouse after Oct 1, as there is not enough water to float a canoe in. But the dock which is about 4' from the water is pushing up on the base of the dock, actually looks like its trying to lift it.

[pcmc]

CanisLupusArctos, Thankyou for the very thorough explanation, I appreciate it.

Originally Posted by CanisLupusArctos

Ice isn't always terrible to docks. Sometimes it's even better to have your dock frozen in solidly. Our dock has been in there for 40 years with no bubbler. The ice occasionally takes a couple of posts out but "straightening out the dock" has been an annual rite of passage in spring, makes a great excuse to get the swim season started as soon as the water's warm enough.

The worst damage occurs when the ice is not solid, such as in spring. It breaks apart and moves around. Springtime often brings free-floating ice that slams into docks. There is nothing a bubbler can do about that. If the incoming ice is sizeable enough, you can't even divert it with a metal pipe. I've tried that, and found myself sliding backwards in standing position on the dock, pushed by the momentum of the ice against the pipe I was using to try to fend off the ice.

In April 2007 we had decent ice cover on the lake when along came the Patriots Day storm with sustained 45 mph winds and gusts to 64 mph. The ice broke apart and slammed many docks, taking out large pilings.

An interesting thing to note about that event is that docks with bubblers suffered the most damage. Docks that were solidly iced-in got much less damage. The ice around those docks acted as a wall of equal substance that fended off the "incoming battering" ice. Bubbler areas became open water very early in the storm. At the height of the storm, those open-water areas allowed for waves filled with chunks of drifting ice that took a huge toll on whatever docks were in the clear area.

There are also many location factors to consider when you decide how much you want to worry about a dock in winter.

South-facing shores need very little protection because the sun hits them with increasing amounts of light all winter long (the least sunlight of the year occurs on the first day of winter in December, after which the days start getting longer and the sun gets higher in the sky.) Sun heats shoreline and shallow-submerged rocks. The rocks then heat the water & ice around them.

Many parts of the lake are exposed to the weather, which gives the ice a shorter life span than it gets in sheltered areas like coves and bays.

Ice behavior varies from location to location on this lake, just like the weather does. There are some shores that routinely take a beating from the ice. In others, the ice behaves itself most of the time. In exposed areas, the time to worry about dock damage is spring when the ice starts floating around. In sheltered coves and on north-facing shores that get no sunlight even on sunny days, ice may grow even during the daylight hours, which will make it behave altogether differently.

On the south-facing shores, it takes near-record cold weather to get ice to grow in the daytime, and it's not uncommon to see it melting back from rocks as early as February.

[fatlazyless]

Spent the afternoon taking the dock all apart and getting it ready for my one-person removal job tomorrow, unless I am a no-show! Hey, finding reliable dock removal people is not-so-easy, especially when you are too cheap to hire someone and go do-it-all-yourself!

Anyway, all the ice from last Sunday is totally gonzo, having returned to its' liquid state.

Bear to Mark, Mark to Timber, Cattle Landing to Bear: totally ice free and all open water. Most surprising to me was the meltdown of all the 1/4 to 1/2 mile ice build-up in the Cat-Bear passage. It all got melted away in the past three days.........holy-smokes.....that's a surprise! What-a-wacky-wintuh?

[19MileBaylover]

Any views of ice conditions on 19 Mile Bay?
Wish there was a webcam there.
Thanksd

[Lakesrider]

It was ice covered on Thursday with snow on the ice. However it was fairly warm yesterday, but I haven't been by. I am off work today and did not see it.
It is 20 degrees out right now..... I did drive by Mt major and could see the main part of the lake is quite wide open. Did not look even close to freezing up.

[19MileBaylover]

Thanks for the update. But didn't expect the blizzard; so much for skating this New Year's day.

[tis]

Originally Posted by 19MileBaylover

Any views of ice conditions on 19 Mile Bay?
Wish there was a webcam there.
Thanksd

I saw an iceboat out there a couple of days before Christmas.

[NHKathy]

Twice now since Friday, I've seen a snowmobile on the Moultonborough Cam - is it that safe already?

[Lakesrider]

I started this thread on the 7th. As of today the Wolfeboro bay has frozen and then unfrozen. Today it was pretty much wide open except near the Brewster Boat House side. The wind was whipping up the water pretty good today. I could see the chop farther out. Now they say maybe hitting 40. May be a while before we actually freeze completely in.

[Blue Thunder]

Originally Posted by Lakesrider

I started this thread on the 7th. As of today the Wolfeboro bay has frozen and then unfrozen. Today it was pretty much wide open except near the Brewster Boat House side. The wind was whipping up the water pretty good today. I could see the chop farther out. Now they say maybe hitting 40. May be a while before we actually freeze completely in.

This is what I said in Post #3 of this thread on Dec 8th:

"I rain on this parade every year at this time. The water temperature is still hovering around 40 degrees. It will be some time before ice of any significance happens.....sorry."

Not much has changed although the water temp has dropped a bit. It's still going to be a while....probably mid January at the earliest.

The tell tale sign that will signal the "process" is Island Girl's "Ice In Watch"

BT

[VitaBene]

I urge anyone venturing on the ice to invest in (or build a set) of ice picks to hang around your neck. Most winter drownings occur because the victim could not pull themselves out of the water.

There is some good info on ice picks and general ice safety here:

http://www.dot.gov.nt.ca/_live/pages...formation.aspx

[This'nThat]

Originally Posted by NHKathy

Twice now since Friday, I've seen a snowmobile on the Moultonborough Cam - is it that safe already?

Definitely not! If you saw someone out on the ice, then he's just part of the early-season competition in the "Fist Dunk Dunce" contest. This contest is held each year to see who wins the "That's ice -- not pavement" award and Jimmy Trophy. In the past, notable winners include

• Truck through the ice at Gov's Island
• Truck through the ice at Minge Cove
• Truck recovery in Alton Bay
• Car in the lake
• Through the ice in Meredith Bay
• SUV falls through ice; Driver escapes
• The ice might not be that thick...

But my all-time favorite, and winner of the first Jimmy trophy, is this one

• Anyone missing a GMC Jimmy?

[fatlazyless]

For the second time now, the passage between Cattle Landing and Bear Island is frozen solid, although it looks like it is thin enough to be traversed in a small, light weight boat. Ya never know....just maybe....a waterskier could be towed right through the one half mile of thin solid ice.....that would be interesting!

Saw a large construction barge today loaded with a yellow Caterpillar machine, moving along from around the Mark-Bear passage, and headed towards either the Weirs or Meredith Bay. Hey, it's never too late for construction!

[fatlazyless]

If you are a jet skier, then you probably know that personal water craft such as a Sea-Doo do not use a propeller, but use a jet pump that sucks in the water and shoots it out the back of the pwc.

About 2-pm today, two jetskiers cruise across this side of Mark Island and head for the frozen water between Bear & Mark. As they got close to the ice-slush-wahtever, they up the revs and head into the frozen unknown.....only immediately to slow down to a creepy crawl. One opts to make a u-turn, while the other continues on toward a big space of open water.

Ok, so I'm watching from maybe a 1/2 mile away and am thinking that jetskis and icy slush, or whatever is floating out there are probably not the best thing to be doing. Anyway.....both jetskis get back into open water and head for Timber Island, close to the witches, where once again they head into the unknown frozen mix but this time it looks like one machine gets all stopped up by the slush, or something. Watching through some cheapie binoculars from about a mile away, it looks like one was in some type of trouble and was a no-go.........but 15-minutes later....both had disappeared around the bend or something.

Anyone for breaking through the ice/ & or slush on a pwc...probably not the smartest thing to be doing? Does the MP still have a boat in the water or is Glendale frozen in....have no idea?

[Lakesrider]

There are approximately 10 Bob Houses out on 19 Mile Bay. There were about 5-6 trucks parked just off the beach/parking area next to the lake. A few Snow mobiles were out at the Bob houses as well. Looked everyone was having a good time at 7am.....I'd have been sleeping but I had to go to work.

[fatlazyless]

No ice showing on the Pine Island South cam, and about two weeks ago the area from the Y-Landing marina out to Pine island and beyond out to the Bear Island no wake zone was pretty much solid ice, but probably pretty thin. It looks like the ice just cannot make up its' mind what to do this year; should it hang around or just melt away?

Ice, ice, just go away & don't come back till another year!

[Lakesrider]

I drove around the lake yesterday. Snow was coming down pretty good for a while there. The middle of the lake is still wide open. Most of the bays and inlets are frozen in pretty good. Wolfeboro Bay was starting to skim over yesterday as well. Not sure how the wind is affecting it today as I have not been over to look. I saw quite a few vehicles on the ice while driving around.