We were out this morning and took these pictures. The top one was taken at about 10:30 as we were leaving, from the top of Sandy Beach Road looking directly across the pond towards Route 15. There seems to be more open water than there was yesterday, in spite of having had temperatures in the 20's and three inches of new snow.

When we came back, a little after noon, things seemed to have opened up a bit more, but it is still pretty solidly frozen where the pallet and flag are.

We went by Molly's pond and it was very pretty in contrast to the snow on the hill behind it.

We stopped to check the clock and the ice just in case something had happened, but it looked very much the same as it had this morning at 7 a.m. It is still solidly frozen, as near as we can tell. Today has not been very warm even though there has been a good deal of sunshine. We will have cold temperatures every night for the next several days, and daytime temperatures aren't going to be very warm, either.

I've had quite a number of people contact me to find out if the ice has gone out and when I tell them the flag is still flying and the clock still ticking, most of them say they are going to get another ticket or two in order to update their guess.

A while ago I mentioned that the U. S. Geological folks based in Maine contacted me back in August of last year wanting to use the ice out information we have to help in a project about global warming and it's effect in northern New England. I went to their website recently, but was not able to find where Joe's Pond was mentioned. When I got in touch with them, they told me the project has not progressed as they had hoped, and now they are looking for records going back 40-50 years. Since our records cover only 25 years, the data will likely not be used. I have records that far back, but not that were consistent with the Ice-Out records, and as far as I know, there are no records of the ice out using the pallet and clock before 1988. The point is, they need information that has been gained in the same manner for 40-50 years.