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Old 02-05-2008, 07:19 PM   #37
CanisLupusArctos
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That depends when the snow falls, and what kind of ice is underneath it.

Last year, the weather turned extremely cold for weeks before major snow came. This allowed clear ice to form, which is stronger than ice formed from snow falling in the water. Clear ice also thickens more easily, because it allows heat to go right through it during a cold night. That's what happened last winter.

Once the ice was really thick (and clear), we started getting snow on top of it. Snow is a great insulator. It has air whipped into it. It is not white but reflective (the white color is because each snowflake reflects in different directions resulting in a blending of all colors = white.)

So when you get a big reflective blanket of snow on top of the ice it seals the lake's heat in, and seals the sun's heat out. It doesn't thicken as easily with snow on it, but it doesn't thin very well either.

This year most of the lake ice formed from snow. The cold weather came at about the same time as the snowfall, and so we have a white flaky ice that doesn't transmit heat very well (won't thicken as easily), isn't as strong as clear ice, and we've had a layer of snow on it for a long time which has sealed in the lake's heat.

This is the time of year when it's good to get snow on the ice because the sun is getting higher in the sky. Without snow on it, this year's lake ice would probably melt before any of us really had much of a chance to play on it.
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