The Weather

[Lin]

It's 22f right now

people are losing their minds

I thought one of these mitts was yours ...

[Ish]

It's 22f right now

people are losing their minds

I thought one of these mitts was yours ...

Wonderful, now we're going to have an influx of sockmittens.

[Lin]

It's 22f right now

people are losing their minds

I thought one of these mitts was yours ...

Wonderful, now we're going to have an influx of sockmittens.

LOL .... well now that we have been discovered by googlers, it was just a matter of time

[Orestes Munn]

Good morning.

Fuck.

[Lin]

To our friends further east ... has it warmed up yet?
OM, I hope you and your better half are enjoying a fantastic getaway this weekend. : ))

Tomorrow the forecast in Vancouver is for some rain. I can't recall the last time I raced in the rain.

[cap10ed]

Algosea 2.jpg

Algosea 1.jpg

No sign of warm up . Spent the last seven days locked in the ice in Long Point Bay. 3 ice breakers and all with engine issues. We finally threw in the towel and called in for relief pilots.Really bad year for being an ice pilot when the ice breakers can’t even get through. Did the exchange by snowmobile. 4 mile run to the beach. Now thats a first for our organization . It is going to be an ugly spring if it ever arrives. Ice will last till May.

[JoeP]

Wow Ed! Was it hard jumping from the seat of the snow machine to the boarding ladder?

[Tigger]

Fascinating! A few questions:

1. Any danger to the ship from being stuck in the ice like that?

2. I take it that the crew stays on board--do they get rotated off for a trip home (wherever that is), or are they 'marooned' in a sea of white until help arrives, or spring?

3. If the ship needs to be re-supplied with fuel, how would that be accomplished?

Cheers

Ross in wet and blustery Vancouver

[cap10ed]

Fascinating! A few questions:

1. Any danger to the ship from being stuck in the ice like that?

2. I take it that the crew stays on board--do they get rotated off for a trip home (wherever that is), or are they 'marooned' in a sea of white until help arrives, or spring?

3. If the ship needs to be re-supplied with fuel, how would that be accomplished?

Cheers

Ross in wet and blustery Vancouver

Tigger the vessel is a tanker and has a matrix of cargo holds strengthened from above the tank and below. She is double hull construction and quite capable of great lakes ice conditions. Crew rotates off every month and they are antsy as they are due off in two days and their company has never done a snowmobile transfer and doesn’t want to try. That sucks. We are not crew members and chose to rotate off the ship. They just had an epic trip coming down from Sarnia. It took 7 days . That lesson taught them to double up on everything. In the summer the Sarnia/Nanticoke run is 24 hours.She carries fuel for a one month voyage now. Makes water from the lake and has provisions for a crew of 19 for a month and a half.

[cap10ed]

Wow Ed! Was it hard jumping from the seat of the snow machine to the boarding ladder?

Joe they won’t let us use the teeter totter of death launch. We’re made to use the accommodation ladder.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR85OeaiCX0[/youtube]

[Lin]

Ed, fascinating pictures and explanations! Wow!!

[kimbottles]

I have friends who are pilots here on Puget Sound, I will have to tell them about your adventure Ed!!

[cap10ed]

Rick is going to be looking at a pilot house for this season. Cold cold cold.With no end in sight, the winter of 2014 rages on, ushering in frigid Arctic
air and dumping record-breaking snow and ice on much of the nation. This
season, ice coverage on Lake Superior has exceeded other measurements in
recent history.

"By the long shot this is the most ice we've had on Lake Superior in 20
years," Associate Professor Jay Austin of the Large Lakes Observatory in
Duluth, Minn., said.

During a typical winter, 30 to 40 percent of the Great Lakes are covered by
ice, according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Brett Anderson.

Usually Arctic air swept over the Great Lakes creates lake-effect snow, but
modifies the air, making it warmer. This usually makes regions from Ohio
through the Northeast a little warmer than it otherwise would be.

However, this winter 80 to 90 percent of the Great Lakes are covered in ice.
As of Thursday, Feb. 13, 2014, Lake Superior was classified as 90 percent
covered.

"The Arctic air masses don't get warmed up as much because of all the snow
and ice," Anderson said. "There has not been much of a thaw so the ice keeps
building up."

The last time the ice coverage was even close to this winter's percentage
was the winter of 1993/94. At this exact time two years ago, the ice
coverage on the Lakes was approximately 9 percent.

Unlike a pond, the depth of the Great Lakes prevent it from being a
completely frozen sheet of ice, but instead the ice atop the lakes can
actually move with the wind, according to Austin. Due to the ability of the
ice to move around, the thickness of the ice across the lakes vary and
therefore researchers do not know how thick the ice is in all portions of
the lake.

So, this makes it hard for scientists to define what freezing over entirely
means.

Depending on who you ask, Lake Superior already has frozen over, Austin
stated. However, with two to three weeks to go until the typical peak of ice
coverage in mid-March, the Lakes will only freeze even more.

"The ice will become more robust, we are going to have more ice rather than
less over the next three weeks," Austin said.

Other than the ice jam worries, the ice coverage on the Great Lakes,
specifically on Lake Superior, is mounting concerns for the region's
climate.

"With all of this ice, all the sunlight that hits the surface of the lake is
going to get bounced back out into space, so it's going to take longer to
get warmer this spring and summer," Austin said. "The lake is going to just
start warming this year when it will start cooling off for next year."

This could bring a relatively cool year for the communities surrounding the
lake.

However, the silver lining of the massive ice coverage is that perhaps it
can prevent lake water levels from lowering like they did just last year.

"With the ice cover, less water gets evaporated so lake levels stay high and
help preserve some of the water," Anderson said.

Regardless of the impending impacts of the ice on the region, one thing is
for sure, the ice isn't going anywhere, anytime soon.

An impending return of the now-infamous polar vortex for the middle of next
week ill send temperatures from the Midwest to the Northeast plummeting 15
to 20 degrees below normal. As it drops down to the James Bay in Canada, it
will deliver another blast of arctic air for the area.

"This type of airmass will give the Great Lakes the potential for a new
satellite-era ice coverage record," Anderson said.

The winters of 1993 and 1994 had the previous highest since we started
monitoring ice coverage with satellites about 30 years ago.

[Soñadora]

Precisely why I designed the Great Lakes 40 :

[Britches]

Thanks a lot Ed! With the 18" of snow we are supposed to get from this new snowstorm this isn't exactly what I was looking forward to reading...Just keeps getting better and better

For the record, I am glad we are getting some more snow. It is winter here and we should have snow. Copious amounts of it so we can enjoy it. But in the summer, it should be summer. And after a crummy summer last year, well, what's the opposite of a snowbird? I'm going to become one of those...

[JoeP]

Precisely why I designed the Great Lakes 40 :

Time to redesign the scantlings to Ice Class Rick.

[JeffD]

Precisely why I designed the Great Lakes 40 :

Is that the Madeline Island shore line behind your beautiful 40'?

Jeff

[Soñadora]

Precisely why I designed the Great Lakes 40 :

Is that the Madeline Island shore line behind your beautiful 40'?

Jeff

no. Somewhere along Michigan I think

[Soñadora]

FUCK

ME

WP_001144.jpg

[Britches]

lol Rick...I can't complain. Thankfully trusty ol neighbor Bob who does the snowblowing for pretty much everyone on the block decided to sleep in this morning so I have an excuse to not be at work! I'm working from home which means fire roaring in the fireplace, eating the best breakfast I've had all week, dog snuggled up next to me, half listening to a meeting while I sit on Scantlings. All in all, it's a pretty good Friday.

[BeauV]

lol Rick...I can't complain. Thankfully trusty ol neighbor Bob who does the snowblowing for pretty much everyone on the block decided to sleep in this morning so I have an excuse to not be at work! I'm working from home which means fire roaring in the fireplace, eating the best breakfast I've had all week, dog snuggled up next to me, half listening to a meeting while I sit on Scantlings. All in all, it's a pretty good Friday.

Nesting! SERIOUS NESTING!!

Our 13 month old Miss Maddison is making the living room into a massive heap of randomly sorted toys. When I move them she gets upset and puts them back where they are "supposed to be". Gives me "the look" (how can women learn "the look" at 13 months?? ) and then sets about tossing other toys into the air. Romo has given up and has taken to sleeping on the back deck protected by the closed doors.

A fire, snuggling dog and quite seems so "last year"!

[Rasp]

Wow Ed! Was it hard jumping from the seat of the snow machine to the boarding ladder?

Joe they won’t let us use the teeter totter of death launch. We’re made to use the accommodation ladder.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR85OeaiCX0[/youtube]

Ed, the would let you use the teeter totter if you were bringing those tetter totter girls with you.

[cavelamb]

My favorite weather site...

The big picture:
http://www.opc.ncep.noaa.gov/UA/USA.gif

Lately this mess has looked more like some fantasy cartoons than
real weather maps... But then so has the weather...

Closeups:
http://www.opc.ncep.noaa.gov/UA/USA_East.gif
http://www.opc.ncep.noaa.gov/UA/USA_West.gif

[Tigger]

Meanwhile, in this neck of the woods, avalanche danger is through the roof ... stay out of the back country!

http://www.avalanche.ca/cac/bulletins/l ... outh-coast

[Tigger]

More here: Canadian Avalanche Centre describes the current situation (a great massive dump of new snow on an unstable base) as 'lipstick on a pig'.

http://blogs.avalanche.ca/this-beauty-i ... skin-deep/

[Orestes Munn]

60 American dee-grees here today, muthafukas!

I really need to find out what size Jefas my rudder takes. Then I need to rent a mini-backhoe to dig a hole to drop it into because I'm parked in by three rows of boats.

[Lin]

60 American dee-grees here today, muthafukas!

I really need to find out what size Jefas my rudder takes. Then I need to rent a mini-backhoe to dig a hole to drop it into because I'm parked in by three rows of boats.

Karma time, baby! It's currently 2 Canadian degrees here in Vangroovy town (which is 36 'merican degrees) and it's currently snowing! Wet snow, but snow all the same!

[Orestes Munn]

60 American dee-grees here today, muthafukas!

I really need to find out what size Jefas my rudder takes. Then I need to rent a mini-backhoe to dig a hole to drop it into because I'm parked in by three rows of boats.

Karma time, baby! It's currently 2 Canadian degrees here in Vangroovy town (which is 36 'merican degrees) and it's currently snowing! Wet snow, but snow all the same!

I don't wish no bad weather on nobody, Lin. However, there are intimations of spring and I am so ready to wake up and leave my cave. It stinks in here!

[Ish]

Our spring is a little delayed this year.

[Lin]

Today was beautiful!! Went for a walk on my break at work to enjoy the fresh air, sunshine, blue skies and the wee bit of snow cover.

I think it's warmed up a bit even back east.