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WHIFF at Hudson
Winter Walk 2023
Once again, the Hudson
River Ice Yacht Club was invited to display one of our
historic ice yachts at the annual Hudson Winter Walk street festival. This
year we chose Commodore Irving Grinnell's 1875 yacht
WHIFF which has been in the club's possession for many
years. Grinnell had this yacht built specifically for
display at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876
representing the state of the art in ice yacht development
and construction. Master builder Jacob Buckhout was given
free reign and a generous budget to create a most elegant
and modern yacht. Nickel plated hardware, gold leaf trim
accents, two carved griffins, and a suit of Egyptian Cotton
sails graced the hall at the grand opening.
Not all of that luxury has
survived to this day, but the basics are still in place and
the yacht looks as smart and handsome as ever. Several hundred
visitors looked on in awe when they learned the elegant
yacht first sailed in 1876 is still an active member of our
fleet today.
    
Sacandaga Reservoir 2023
Roundup
Determined to get in a bit
of sailing this winter, there will be an expedition to
Sacandaga Reservoir this weekend. People will begin arriving
at the
Broadalbin Public Boat Launch noon Friday to inspect the
ice and assess the conditions. There is no guarantee there
will be good sailing, but last weekend's subzero weather
built enough ice to encourage people load up their boats and
hit the road.
It will be very windy
Friday and Saturday with gusts 40 - 50 mph -- bring your
storm sails. A small heavy jib, might suffice those two
days.
Broadalbin Weather Forecast
From the
saratoga ice sailing facebook group:
"
Just did a quick scout of Sacandaga at Broadalbin launch. Drilled
7”+ before drill died. Local reports say 10”+. Snow on
surface now water. All we need now is cold temps. Those
won’t arrive until Friday night (mid 20’s predicted). I’m
thinking this has good potential for Saturday. Could sail it
tomorrow but I think it will be puddly, and gusts over 40mph
predicted. As always be very careful on this body of water
due to it being a reservoir with constantly changing levels
and frequent pressure ridges.  carefully Scout and drill
everywhere before taking high speed runs."
Arctic Blast is History
We Begin a Warm and Wet
Week
Sunday, February 5, 2023
The coldest air mass of
this winter and the coldest since 2016 made a brief visit
Friday afternoon through Saturday afternoon. My thermometer
here at Beckwith Hill bottomed out at -7 F early Saturday
Morning, recovered to near 10 F by 5pm and continued
climbing to 20 F at midnight. Some shallow ponds that had a
bit of a icy surface coating made two inches of new ice
during this period, but the Hudson River has nothing but a
bit of thin brash surface ice freely floating with the tide
at this hour. Most of this will mix out and melt as
temperatures go back to 40 F for most of the week. Runoff
and surface stream flow will resume again tomorrow. Absent a
10 day Arctic outbreak similar to what happened in 1978 from
February 9 - 19th, I think it is fair to speculate that we
will likely be skunked this year. Summer may be cooler than
last year (more like a "normal" year) according to some
pundits, which would be a welcome change -- the current
setup could be the prologue of a banner spring for 3 - 4
powerful Nor'easter's come March, April, and early May.
Arctic Cold in Downeast
Maine
Thursday, February 2,
2023
The coldest air is just east
of us in Newfoundland. Here in the Hudson Valley the wind is
out of the south and temperatures have remained in the 20's
for the past two nights. Some of the shallow ponds have
formed a bit of ice, but we need temperatures of 10 F or
lower to make some real thickness. The core of the jet
stream is directly overhead running from Arizona to Maine
pulling in warmer air aloft and fending off the Polar Arctic
air mass to our north. Flights from Los Angeles to New York
were getting a 150 mph boost in their ground speed
yesterday. I ran BUFKIT this morning and the models are
still showing a Friday to Saturday blast of near zero degree
temperatures for Poughkeepsie, but looking at the maps
visually, it looks like the coldest air is sliding east and
retreating north and may miss us.
Still No Sailing in
Sight
Hopes for an Early
February
Freeze Seem to be Fading
January 29, 2023
The week started out with
nuisance snow and rain followed by a cold night which
slicked up area driveways. Warm and sunny weather followed
and melted most of the snow by mid-week -- tonight a modest
drop in temperature will follow the passage of a weak cold
front, but overall, temperatures will remain above the
seasonal average until the end of the week at which time
frigid arctic air may bleed across the Niagara and St.
Lawrence rivers into northern New England and build a few
inches of ice. The large lakes such as Winnipesaukee in NH
and Sebago ME are practically ice free and may barely close
by the weekend before the warm air from the southwest scours
out the cold air again and the lakes return to open water.
Should this come to pass, we will probably be skunked again
this season.
Quoting the National Weather
Service:
"As mentioned, the ensembles and global guidance are in agreement
that the cold outbreak is short-lived with temperatures returning
back to normal by Sunday and the start of the new work week."
And Larry Cosgrove:
"Analog and numerical model forecasts for March are mostly in the mild
or warm category, so the clock is running if you want a more typical winter
setting to arrive."
March could be wild with the clash of air masses spawning thunderstorms, tornados,
and powerful nor'easters east of the the Rockies.
No
Sailing in Sight
January 22, 2023
High pressure off the
Delmarva Coast will squeeze a weak low pressure system
inland of the coast until it arcs east through Long Island
into the Atlantic. A mix of rain and snow will develop late
this afternoon and early evening across the Northeastern US.
Valley locations should see mostly rain and little snow
accumulations while snow, perhaps as much as 8 inches, will
fall in the higher elevations to our south and west and
across much of New England.
Temperatures should fall to
near normal levels by midweek as another stronger storm
moves across the country from New Mexico to the Tennessee
Valley and into the St. Lawrence Valley. If the current
forecast track holds, we should see rain here in the Valley
from this storm as well.
Some forecasters see the
potential for an arctic outbreak the last week of February,
but with no ice in place, winter winding down, and the
general global pattern of the cold air sitting on the pole
all winter, I think we would be hard pressed to get anything
more than a smattering of ice that will rapidly disappear.
We would need a ten day deep freeze of zero degree nights to
generate some short lived sailing. In 1978, we had such a
freeze from Feb 9 - 19th and there has been late ice many
years -- but making 8" of ice for the big boats from nothing
is hard to do after Valentine's Day in this era of global
warming.
January 16, 2023
While the West Coast is
getting battered with round after round of wind, snow, and
rain storms, the East remains relatively tranquil and warm
for January. The large nearly stationary low that developed
off the Delmarva Coast last weekend is slowly weakening, but
still managed to create strong winds with areas of snow,
sleet, and freezing rain from Cape Cod to Downeast Maine
last night. A bit of light snow even made it west into the
Taconics, Berkshire Hills, and Green Mountains for a few
brief hours.
The sub-zero air mass is
steadily shrinking and retreating toward Greenland this week
-- the long range numerical models show little change from
last week -- the cold air sits well to our north and once a
week burps a weak pulse our way across the Canadian border.
I see no real reason for this to change in the next two
weeks -- once we are into February it could be a quick slide
into a train of wet snow and warm sunny days where our
sailing prospects become nil.
In the Northeast in late
February and early March, a number of factors come together
that cause the direct normal intensity of the daily Solar
radiation to reach its annual maximum of about 10% above the
average value of 1000 Watts per square meter. People who are
outdoors all day in the winter often have a gentle suntan by
late February or early March. If you are sitting outdoors in
a chair watching the birds at the feeder or if you are
charting the output of your rooftop solar system, the bump
in output is very noticeable.
5
x 5
5 Subjects as Seen
by 5 Photographers
Morton Memorial Library
82 Kelly Street
Rhinecliff, NY 12574
Saturday January 7, 2023
4:30 - 7:00 pm
-----------------------------------------------
Announcing Hard Water Sailing:
The Ice Boats of the Hudson River
A Solo Exhibition of Photography by
Adam T.
Deen
The Stewart House
Athens, New York
The Exhibition Showcases the Hudson River
Ice Yacht Club
Opening: Sunday, January 8, 2023 3 - 6 pm
Exhibition: Jan 8 - Mar 31, 2023 (Closed for
February)
January 2023 Weather Outlook
As the new year begins, we are in a
tranquil and warm pattern. NOAA's
Climate Prediction Center outlook for the January -
March 2023 period concludes:
"Positive Sea Surface Temperature
anomalies persist over the Gulf of Mexico and along the East
Coast with the largest anomalies offshore of the
Mid-Atlantic and New England."
While some see analogues to the cold
winter of 1994 which gave us good ice and sailing on the
Hudson River from Verbank to Hudson, this seems unlikely to
me given the current trends. The first two storms of the
winter resulted in what I consider to be "busted forecasts"
-- the phasing of the low pressure systems off the Atlantic
Coast that the models predicted, did not occur. Last weekend's
epic storm in Buffalo was the result of the low pressure
center developing north of New York State in Canada
resulting in rain and warm weather wrapping into the system
east of the Catskill Mountains to the Atlantic Coast, and
very cold air being funneled across the Great Lakes
triggering copious amounts of Lake Effect Snowfall. While
two cold nights did bring the Hudson River down to freezing
early in the week, by Thursday it was 60 F in Poughkeepsie
once again as the cold air retreated to areas north and
northwest of Hudson Bay. At
North Germantown Landing, what was free flowing ice on
Tuesday is once again entirely blue water. Northern Maine may
make a bit of ice during the long nights of the coming week.
Looking Ahead -- Animated Global Data Modeled
Click and hold on the globe and rotate the view to North
America.
Click on "Anim" to put it in motion or hover over the list
of hourly forecast times to step through the model output.
Note in the forecast graphics that the dominant circulation
remains a zonal pattern west to east across the central and
eastern USA with occasional weak pulses of cold arctic air
barely crossing the Canada - USA border.
The cold air can sit on the poles all winter if there is no
general circulation moving it to the lower latitudes. It
looks to me like we are in for a warm winter into at least
mid February if you believe the forecast modeling.
In my view, the forecast models have not done very well the
last two weeks, so I tend to ignore everything beyond five
days out. Larry Cosgrove publishes his updates about noon on
Saturday's -- we'll get his take shortly.
End of the 2022 Season Recap
With a second winter of
the COVID Pandemic, we tried to maintain a low profile of
our on ice activities -- but that's hard to do in this era
of social media and universal Internet access. Within an
hour of arrival to set up at Murderer's Creek, word was out,
and during the next two days there were several hundred
visitors to the ice. There was more pushing, than sailing,
but people enjoyed the scene and seemed happy to be out of
the house and participating in the small gathering of these
old ice yachts that were built in the 1880 - 1910 era of our
history.
The winter was marked by
less than average precipitation and one deep freeze period
of January 21 - 31, 2022.
Contrast this to the last
time we had very good ice boating on the Hudson River. In
2014, we had three deep freezes -- Jan 21 - 30, Feb 3 - 13,
and Feb 25 - Mar 6th -- and a 21 inch snowfall on Feb 14th.
The snow fell and saturated on the river between the deep
freezes and build a nice thick layer of snow ice on top of
the stronger brash ice below. The NSIBYC restored 50' Ice Yacht
ROCKET was trailered up, assembled, and made its first
sail in 100 years.
While we were hopeful for
some sailing off Cheviot or Barrytown this year, it's clear
why that did not happen and why the river ice broke up so
quickly.
Friday, February 11,
2022 -- End of the Season
Murderer's Creek opened up
this afternoon and one person went through the ice --
fortunately in shallow water up to his chest -- and was
immediately retrieved with no ill effects.
A strong south wind, abundant sunshine, and 50° F
temperatures rapidly eroded the ice in Athens today. More
of the same is expected tomorrow. Two boats have been
removed, and the rest of the fleet will be off the ice by
this evening or tomorrow morning.
Sorry, but that's the way it goes in this sport -- maybe
next year.
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