Ice coming back by next Month? February going to be really cold?

[taxi1]

Got this interesting response from a meteorologist here in Indiana. Thought those of us that are going through icefishing withdrawal due to no ice or poor ice might get a pick me up from it. Thank you Jon!


"From one ice fisherman to another, this pattern is horrible! An intense Pacific jet originating from the Asian continent has been barreling across the Pacific and slamming into the west coast of the US most of the winter. This has lead to an abnormally strong westerly flow across North America, which has prevented the cold air from moving south out of Canada. The cold air did come for awhile in the first half of December, but even during this period the strong Pacific flow did not stop, and the cold pattern across North America could only resist for so long.


It appears that this pattern will last at least the next week. It would be highly unusual for this warmth to last the rest of the winter however, so I think there is still hope. We are starting to see some encouraging signs in the long term model data, suggesting a little more cold air starting in the 7 to 10 day range. Initially it looks like the cold air will come in step down fashion, meaning we will see the cold air come in piece by piece, with each one a little colder than the last. We work with a college professor from Ball State on occasion, and he dabbles in long term forecasting. He thinks the cold air will be back by the end of the month, and he is going for a cold February. Another encouraging factor, in the past year we have seen a tendency for a particular pattern to last for 20 to 30 days. We have been in this warm pattern now for about 18 days. It is going to take some time, but myself and the other ice fisherman in the office think we will be back out on the ice by around Feb 1st."


Jon - IWX Webteam

[Icenutter]

I hope you are right.  Don't forget the days start to get longer and the suns rays will get a little stronger in Feb.  The suns rays will play an inportant part in the ice making during the day.  Let's hope for really cold nights and really cloudy days.  If we loose all of our ice this week it will take another 2 weeks to get them back to safe levels.  We will have to wait on those ideal crystal clear and windless nights and sub zero temps to get things locked back up.  Usually these warm-up's don't come until Feb. and the ice is thick enough to handle the warm thru March.   

[bigredonice]

I don't know about other places, but around here, the weather makes up for itself...the more warm weather we get, the longer its going to be bitterly cold for when the warmspell ends.

[taxi1]

I hope you are right.  Don't forget the days start to get longer and the suns rays will get a little stronger in Feb.  The suns rays will play an inportant part in the ice making during the day.  Let's hope for really cold nights and really cloudy days.  If we loose all of our ice this week it will take another 2 weeks to get them back to safe levels.  We will have to wait on those ideal crystal clear and windless nights and sub zero temps to get things locked back up.  Usually these warm-up's don't come until Feb. and the ice is thick enough to handle the warm thru March.   

With all due respect as a student of meteorology I don't take much credence in the day length aspect. It's more of a long term thing, as we all know the first day of spring can be anything but spring like. We also know the days start to get longer in December, but yet typically January is our coldest month of the year. The sun is also closest to the earth in winter, but that makes little difference due to the angle of the earth vs. the sun.

I've observed one winter where the Canadian polar air never made it down all winter except for a few days of subzero temps in February. However I've also seen subzero temps put on five inches of ice in a matter of a couple of days on local lakes.

With the lakes and ponds very close to freezing it won't take long to put on some ice if we get the really cold temps.

There is one postive aspect of losing ice in midwinter. It allows the water to breath and to rejuvenate oxygen levels in euthrophic lakes, and makes winterkill much less likely vs. a cold long winter with deep snow. However, on the flip side with smaller ponds, no ice, but cold temps with the wind not allowing the ice to freeze up, can stress bass and bluegills. In case you weren't aware believe it or not, ice acts as an insulator and allows wamer temps up to 39 F. to persist in deeper water. When I had my first pond I actually stressed my bass by circulating bottom water to the surface with two diffusers, and exposed the entire water column to below freezing temps. I now know either keeping the snow off the pond or only aerating in a shallow end of the pond is best.

Don't be a pessimist! There's still time! Who knows we could be icefishing into March like we did a few years ago!

[crappie98]

by mid to late feb. here i am ready for open water fishing.  This sat. we are taking the boat to the miss. river and hitting the walleyes something about getting off the lake yesterday and wading in three feet of water to get to shore off the ice seems to be the closer for ice fishing for me until next weekend when we head to NW Iowa where the ice is still 14 to 16 inches.

[ExFS]

With the forecast for the upper 30's to 40's this week, I'm looking forward to some colder weather!  This warm/wet weather is going to hurt the ice in VT. 

[Crazy-Joe]

Yeah,Down here in western MA the weather is gonna be in the high 40s low 50's this week.It sucks there are still places where we can't fish around here .We will have to go north.alot of ice derbys coming up in a couple weeks.we'll see.

[fishingking]

warm weather jsut makes for more comfy icefishing the cold will be back soon I HOPE

[taxi1]

warm weather jsut makes for more comfy icefishing the cold will be back soon I HOPE

Not if you don't have any ice left! 

[biggvinn2000]

i hope that guy is right, they are calling for 50 degrees tomm. i cant handle this warm weather any more.

[madporider]

i sure hope so