Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Resident 2B
BoulderBronco,
The wind has a huge impact on the ability of open water to ice up. If the surface of the water is being moved by the wind, it does not have the ability to freeze. What is needed is a cold night and no wind. That will cause the lake to get a skim coat usually a half inch or so think.
Once there is a skim coat, the wind can still mess up the ice-in process. It works on any area of thin ice and once it breaks through, it continues to enlarge the opening. Once the opening is large enough for any wind-driven wave action, thin ice will get eaten up very quickly, even with tempatures well below freezing. The ice has to be an inch or two thick before it gets "safe" from most winds below 20 mph.
Today, the wind got a lot of the ice outside of the bays. Although it will be below freezing tonight, the ice will be no match for wind gusts of 40 mph on tap for tomorrow. We need the wind to die down for the process to begin again.
With water tempatures at 35 degrees, one cold and still night followed by a cold and rather still day will do the job in many areas of the lake.
Sorry for the bad news, but that is how it works.
R2B
|
Thanks. But I'm not stupid. I understand that. But at some point the water will freeze. If it was 100* below zero it would freeze in a second no matter how windy. So. I am just wondering how cold it would have to be to cancel out the wind? 10*? 0*? -10*? -50*? What? Any guesses?