Winter Weather for 2023/2024

[jethro]

I can tell you this with 100% CERTAINTY...

...there will be weather.

[zcm_82]

I can tell you this with 100% CERTAINTY...

...there will be weather.

Well, that does make you more accurate than the forecast 

It was 57 friggin degrees here yesterday afternoon. I did take advantage of it not being windy to go out and shoot some test loads I cooked up over the past few weeks.



The 10 day still looks terrible. Got a little dip coming Monday/Tuesday, but nothing near enough to help.

[FingerLaker607]

Even the most optimistic weather guys I follow are giving up on winter this year for the northeast.  This is downright depressing for us ice fishermen...for those of you who still get a consistent freeze, enjoy it while you can

[MNice]

First winter of retirement, live on a lake in MN. December 16 and it’s raining??   Boooo.

Building a cedar strip canoe in my shop, I may use that before the otter sled. All in all life is good, just need to get normal weather

[zcm_82]

The new NOAA projections just dropped... still looks like crap.

January



J-F-M



Absolutely nothing conducive for making ice locally in the 10 day forecasts from any of the major weather players.

[missoulafish]

Sweet. That just ruined my day.  Winter has been garbage so far.

[zcm_82]

It's not looking very promising. Unless some kind of serious cold blast blows in, I'm starting to doubt we see any ice in this neck of the woods this year.

Every time we get a good looking day or two, it ends up blowing up warm before anything gets a chance to skim over.

[4seasonfishrman]

Well here in western Pennsylvania we have a pretty short ice season even on a good year.  We're lucky to get a month of ice anymore and that's usually mid January to mid February.  Not looking good this year, was 60 degrees yesterday and the rest of this week looks warm.  We'll get 2 or 3 cold days then a front comes through and it will rain.  I jinxed myself by buying a shanty a few seasons ago. We haven't gotten good ice since I bought it. 

[zcm_82]

Well here in western Pennsylvania we have a pretty short ice season even on a good year.  We're lucky to get a month of ice anymore and that's usually mid January to mid February.  Not looking good this year, was 60 degrees yesterday and the rest of this week looks warm.  We'll get 2 or 3 cold days then a front comes through and it will rain.  I jinxed myself by buying a shanty a few seasons ago. We haven't gotten good ice since I bought it.

I'm at about the same latitude as Pittsburgh. It's always been pretty variable year to year here too, but it's definitely trending worse as time goes on. The last really good season around here was 3 or 4 winters ago.

Today is the first time we've been below freezing in about a week. It was 59° Christmas Eve, and 55 the day of. We're about to wrap the calendar year 2023 with no days below zero for the entire year. We only had 3 or 4 last year, and they were all during that freak Xmas cold snap 

The local 10 day is finally starting to look better, but still not good enough to make fishable ice. Nighttime lows are ok, but the daytime highs are still above freezing.

[Neil McCauley]

Wish we'd at least get a solid 12-15" noreaster to cool these lakes off. Even that's not looking good.

[FreshwaterPhil]

I believe the start our winter here in Southern Quebec is the warmest since 2015. Back then, I managed a small carp in open water on December 24th. That spot currently should have 2-3 inches of ice on it. I did find safe ice further North, landed close to 40 bass this week on 7-8 inches of ice on a very small lake 100 miles North of here, and at higher elevation.

[zcm_82]

If... big if... the extended forecast TWC/WU currently have out is fairly close to reality, some of the smaller puddles around here may be ready by the 10th-15th.

The highs they're showing are marginal, so it would be really slow building up thickness, and the wind is always a big factor early.

[Iceshanty]

Some of that really cold air has to spill our way eventually. 

[WARRIOR_ON_ICE]

Yeah, it is pretty upsetting to experience this year after year. Ask any ice fisherman if the earth is warming and you will not get a single argument against it. The reasons are still highly debatable I suppose.

When this site was created, they devoted forums to states that had a bonafide ice fishing season. Now just 20 years later, it looks like forums for RI, NJ, WV, MD, IL, IN are not needed anymore. I do feel bad for them, hell I feel bad for myself with the ice fishing season having gone from as long as 4 months in my earlier years to maybe one longer than 2.5 months in the last decade

[Ice pack]

Yeah, it is pretty upsetting to experience this year after year. Ask any ice fisherman if the earth is warming and you will not get a single argument against it. The reasons are still highly debatable I suppose.

When this site was created, they devoted forums to states that had a bonafide ice fishing season. Now just 20 years later, it looks like forums for RI, NJ, WV, MD, IL, IN are not needed anymore. I do feel bad for them, hell I feel bad for myself with the ice fishing season having gone from as long as 4 months in my earlier years to maybe one longer than 2.5 months in the last decade

We will eventually Cycle back cold Hopefully in our lifetime.

[zcm_82]

Yeah, it is pretty upsetting to experience this year after year. Ask any ice fisherman if the earth is warming and you will not get a single argument against it. The reasons are still highly debatable I suppose.

When this site was created, they devoted forums to states that had a bonafide ice fishing season. Now just 20 years later, it looks like forums for RI, NJ, WV, MD, IL, IN are not needed anymore. I do feel bad for them, hell I feel bad for myself with the ice fishing season having gone from as long as 4 months in my earlier years to maybe one longer than 2.5 months in the last decade

We still get a good one once in a while. 2018/19 or 19/20... I was punching 13-14" of ice, and it was around from the beginning of January clear into early March.

The good winters are just getting farther between than they used to.

[FreshwaterPhil]

Yeah, it is pretty upsetting to experience this year after year. Ask any ice fisherman if the earth is warming and you will not get a single argument against it. The reasons are still highly debatable I suppose.

When this site was created, they devoted forums to states that had a bonafide ice fishing season. Now just 20 years later, it looks like forums for RI, NJ, WV, MD, IL, IN are not needed anymore. I do feel bad for them, hell I feel bad for myself with the ice fishing season having gone from as long as 4 months in my earlier years to maybe one longer than 2.5 months in the last decade

Most ice guys fish open water as well, and then there are the crowds that will fish open water but won't go out on ice. So people at the Southern edge of the receding ice belt aren't necessarily losing out. Of course, easier to say coming from a Canadian with no worries of not seeing any ice here in my lifetime...

Up here, we had early ice from 2016 to 2019, mid November about 1 hour North from Montreal at elevation, to early December closer to home on smaller waterways. Then again in 2021.
Last year slightly earlier than this year maybe 2 weeks difference, and that was alreay a warmer one. 2015 was the warmest I've logged since I started loggin my outings in 2008.

[SnoHam13]

our weather in the Keweenaw


Moonset
9:43 am
Thu 28
AM Clouds/PM Sun
40°
/31°
12%
NNW 10 mph
Fri 29
Mostly Sunny
38°
/28°
6%
NNW 10 mph
Sat 30
Mostly Cloudy
35°
/28°
10%
NE 8 mph
Sun 31
AM Snow Showers
30°
/27°
38%
NNE 12 mph
Mon 01
Partly Cloudy
34°
/31°
3%
W 16 mph
Tue 02
Mostly Cloudy
35°
/28°
7%
WNW 12 mph
Wed 03
Cloudy
32°
/24°
23%
NW 11 mph
Thu 04
Cloudy
28°
/23°
15%
NW 12 mph
Fri 05
Partly Cloudy
28°
/25°
13%
W 13 mph
Sat 06
Cloudy
31°
/26°
18%
W 14 mph
Sun 07
Cloudy
31°
/26°
18%
WSW 13 mph
Mon 08
Cloudy
31°
/27°
21%
SW 12 mph
Tue 09
AM Snow Showers
31°
/25°
43%
WNW 13 mph
Wed 10
AM Snow Showers
28°
/23°
46%
NNW 13 mph

[zcm_82]

Most ice guys fish open water as well, and then there are the crowds that will fish open water but won't go out on ice. So people at the Southern edge of the receding ice belt aren't necessarily losing out. Of course, easier to say coming from a Canadian with no worries of not seeing any ice here in my lifetime...

Up here, we had early ice from 2016 to 2019, mid November about 1 hour North from Montreal at elevation, to early December closer to home on smaller waterways. Then again in 2021.
Last year slightly earlier than this year maybe 2 weeks difference, and that was alreay a warmer one. 2015 was the warmest I've logged since I started loggin my outings in 2008.

We had a couple really bad ones around then, too. 2014/15, 15/16, somewhere in there. There were one or two in the mid/late 2000s where there wasn't any local ice at all, either.

It's always been a roll of the dice this far south as long as I've been living here, it's just trending toward less good seasons as the years roll on.🤷‍♂️

A couple years ago started off pretty bad/late, but then it ended up turning into a decent season.

Just have to be ready and willing to hit it whenever the ice is on living on the tail end of the belt, because you never know how long it's gonna stick around. Could be 2 days, could be 2 months 

[zcm_82]

Newest NOAA 10-14 day projections look a little bit better

10 day


14 day

[Stickjiggler]

It's a crazy year for sure. Most of the lakes around me (MN 40 miles west of the twin cities) have opened back up with all the rain we had on Christmas. Most years we are driving out by now.

[chapru]

I posted this on the PA website. We walked the dogs over by the Susky and she picked this; dandelions blooming on 12/28/23.

[eriksat1]

Checked weather this morning no snow in forecast, look out window a few minutes ago and it's snowing out.
They can't even get same day weather right.
,

[FreshwaterPhil]

Back from my first outing of 2024, was hoping to find safe ice closer to home. Ran a bunch of spots, only 3 had safe ice, 2 of which were crowded, so I didn't bother.

Was lucky to find 3 solid inches on my 3rd spot, had it to myself. Spud bar was in order, as there were some thinner spots.



At least the ducer was able to shoot through the thin ice, managed 27 perch in about 3 hours, nothing big.



This is the least ice I've seen for early January in this region,  since I started ice fishing around 25 years ago, surpassing the previous warmest of January 2016.

By now, most of the spots I couldn't access would have been safe, and the spot i was at has had over 12 inches of ice by this time, and I've even seen it thicker in early November a few years ago.

[zcm_82]

Local forecast is showing a good turn mid-month... we'll see how it holds up as next week comes around. If this is close, some local puddles should be fishable by the 15th or so. 🤞

[glenwyo]

Quite a few reservoirs in Wyoming with good, solid ice.

[Iceshanty]

_

[OldSailor]

Quite a few reservoirs in Wyoming with good, solid ice.

Enjoy the fishing!!!

[thomasthepikehunter]

Yeah, it is pretty upsetting to experience this year after year. Ask any ice fisherman if the earth is warming and you will not get a single argument against it. The reasons are still highly debatable I suppose.

When this site was created, they devoted forums to states that had a bonafide ice fishing season. Now just 20 years later, it looks like forums for RI, NJ, WV, MD, IL, IN are not needed anymore. I do feel bad for them, hell I feel bad for myself with the ice fishing season having gone from as long as 4 months in my earlier years to maybe one longer than 2.5 months in the last decade

I don't know much about RI or NJ, but being costal, I'm not that surprised. Did MD or IN ever have good ice? I can't say I ever would have thought WV ever had an ice season. It doesn't get that high of elevation either so it can't be like Colorado which is just as warm but still gets ice if you go high enough. Indiana was always hit and miss as far as I can remember. I think the biggest cases can be made in northern Illinois, and Iowa. It definitely seems they don't get ice like they used to.

On a good note, I thought I needed new winter boots. Now I don't need new boots at least for this year.

[thomasthepikehunter]

Now that I think about it, as much as I love ice fishing, why is it a problem if you live somewhere you don't get ice? Fish bite just as well from a boat.