Some Things Change, Some Don't at Joe's Pond

 I wanted to show you some interesting photos that reinforce what I was saying recently about the ice being unusual and dangerous. Gretchen Farnsworth took these pictures of the ice in the channel by their house (Sandy Beach Road), one was taken Friday evening and the second one was taken Saturday morning. We have had a fair amount of rain (Friday) and that has sent a lot of water into the pond, raising the water level which weakens the ice and begins to overflow around the edges of the pond and melt away the ice. She said the difference was remarkable and different than other years since they have been here.

Gretchen also said that the geese are happily finding more open water and they seem to be here earlier than usual, as well. 

 

Diane Rossi sent me this photo this evening and remarked that the block is "just sitting there under the moon." Indeed, the block shows no signs of change - no sign of melting going on around it at all. However, you can bet that there is a significant amount of thawing going on underneath that ice. The temperature of the pond water will be warming with all the runoff coming off the hills from melting snow and the rain we've had. There is hardly any snow left, even though there was a sifting of new snow on the ground first thing this morning, but it didn't stay long. I saw a few snowflakes off and on during the day, but the temperature stayed in the low 40s or high 30s all day. Not a lot of melting, but there is still a lot of water coming off of the higher elevations into the pond to raise the water level and temperature.

Today I received this acknowledgement of my involvement with CoCoRaHS over the years. I actually started in June, 2009.
It doesn't seem possible I've made that many weather reports.

Would you believe that I've posted 5, 330 articles on this blog? And even more astounding, there have been 905,316 actual viewers who have logged onto it over the years. I'm not sure when I began writing the blog, but I will see if I can locate that information, too. It's been a long time! And the format for the blog has changed at least twice since I opened it; however, I believe all the entries are still available to search.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and watch for updates on ice conditions and other happenings (or non-happenings) at Joe's Pond.