First 2014 Ice Season Blog Post

Photo by Karl van der Voort

Welcome to the 2014 Ice Season! 

Over the summer we have been working on several articles.

• A review of accidents from the 2013 season looks at the ground truth of why people die on ice.  The summary page in particular is important reading.   
• One result of that report was understanding  how much of a role thawed ice plays in accidents. (more on thawed ice)
• Ice on rivers behaves differently than ice on lakes.  They can offer an interesting ice venue but also have several new ways to get in trouble. (more on Rivers). 
• If you missed it in April, where were  several spectacular ice push events on Lake Champlain, and Winnebago (WI) and Mille Lacs (MN) and Dauphin Lake (MAN).   
• A write up for an unusual large scale ice formation in Newfoundland in March. For a while it was thought to be something that fell from above. 
• Rip-outs are a reasonably common source of large areas of  open water that form after the ice had come in.  This article is based on a picture taken by the NH Civil Air Patrol over lake Winnipesaukee. 
• Karl van der Voort sent some pictures showing some of the signs of ice getting toward being significantly weakened by thawing.  He also sent a few more pictures from his skating adventures. Karl found great skating ice in Northern Sweden in late October.  The pictures on this post were taken by Karl on his trip.