[Pearson796]

The last couple of nights have been horrible for sleep. Two nights ago I woke up to ice hitting the hull and when I climbed out of the V-berth to use the head, the weight in the boat shifted and I huge cracking of ice was heard as the boat settled.

From about 3a into the rest of the morning, I could not sleep as I heard cracking and banging on the hull.

Last night there was bumping most of the night from the ice.

Well, today we woke up to relatively warm temps and no condensation on the Vberth windows are frost/ice on them.

Today I ended up getting a D-Icer. That means no more ice building up around the hull! Yay... I'm so happy. Maybe I'll be able to sleep better on those bitter cold nights when the harbor starts to freeze.

It was an awesome day today with temps hitting the mid 40's. Tomorrow it's supposed to hit 50. Unfortunately we have another arctic front moving through and single digits are supposed to happen a couple of days this week.

 

[mad_machine]

this is Lakes Bay behind Atlantic City. I have not seen the back bays this frozen in decades. That little bit of green in the middle bottom is the -only- free water as far as the eye can see. The guys who redrive all the dock pilings are going to have a good spring

 

[Brent Swain]

Except for on day in early December, we haven't seen any sea ice here in BC .Its been one of the warmest, driest winters on record.
A big high and the movement east of the jet stream has meant warm air from Hawaii here, while the east side of the high has sent the arctic air south , east of the Rockies. One possible benefit in Florida may mean the Pythons may go extinct there. They are not evolved for long cold periods.

 

[rbyham]

Doubt the cold will bother the pythons... they will just go indoors.

 

[Rhapsody-NS27]

When I was looking for a marina to put my boat, I asked a lady about whether boats were hauled out in winter time. She said "we don't freeze here" and this morning, I looked at their web cam and saw the whole bay was frozen. Funny how things work out. I'm sure it's been a long time since that happened.

A guy from work said he's been in this area for 7 winters and this is the strangest winter ever. He said that while it does get cold, what we're seeing now is much colder than in the past.

 

[Pearson796]

When I was looking for a marina to put my boat, I asked a lady about whether boats were hauled out in winter time. She said "we don't freeze here" and this morning, I looked at their web cam and saw the whole bay was frozen. Funny how things work out. I'm sure it's been a long time since that happened.

A guy from work said he's been in this area for 7 winters and this is the strangest winter ever. He said that while it does get cold, what we're seeing now is much colder than in the past.

That's what they are saying here, this is highly unusual. When we first got here, the guys were saying there were a couple of cold weeks in January but things started to warm up by Feb.

We even looked up the weather history for this area and saw that it rarely had hard freezes.

But what do we get? We get a whole lot of teens and several days of single digits.

I wish the heck it would start to warm up so I could complain about the heat!

 

[CruisingCouple]

It's all caused by global warming. Somebody sent me a link to some blog for a government scientist at the whitehouse, but now I can't find it. Anyway, this dude said the cold weather is "more than likely" caused by global warming. Yep, it's true.

Seems the "polar vortex", that they just invented last week to describe how winter works, normally stays trapped at the north pole. But global warming has weakened the "barrier" that's supposed to keep it there and the "polar vortex" got out. Yep, it's true.

It all made perfect sense to me

 

[Fstbttms]

Seems the "polar vortex", that they just invented last week to describe how winter works, normally stays trapped at the north pole.

Yeah, "they just invented" it.

Sorry to break it to you, but the "Polar Vortex", the new weather buzzwords that have been sweeping social media, isn't a newly discovered weather phenomenon at all, or even rare.

The Polar Vortex: Filtering The Science Through The Hype

The polar vortex was first described as early as 1853. The phenomenon's sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) appears during the wintertime in the Northern Hemisphere and was discovered in 1952 with radiosonde observations at altitudes higher than 20 km.

As for the dreaded "polar vortex," which is responsible for the cold sweeping through much of the country? It's there every winter but moves around -- sometimes it's nearer Canada and the United States, other times closer to Asia and Europe...

Polar Vortex Chill Fails to Make History - Scientific American

Polar vortexes, though, are nothing new. They occur seasonally at the North Pole...

Here's What The 'Polar Vortex' That's Hitting The US Actually Is - Yahoo Finance

The polar vortex forms every year to the north...

Polar Vortex Blasts Tri-State With Arctic Winds, Dangerous Cold; Central Park Breaks 118-Year Low | NBC New York

This is not a new phenomenon. Meteorologists have studied the polar vortex for decades.

What is the polar vortex? - New York News

Just because you never heard of it before doesn't mean it was "just invented."

 

[Frogwatch]

Only two places you should find solid water, iced tea and scotch on the rocks, anything else is simply unnatural.

 

[CruisingCouple]

Just because you never heard of it before doesn't mean it was "just invented."

Oh. Where I come from, for thousands of years, it's just been called "winter". We always figured it was caused by the sun going on vacation down in the Bahamas for a few months every year.

 

[Sal Paradise]

Here in NY it is bitterly cold with wind and snow.I am old enough to remember the last time this happened - January 1994. I think this winter might have that one beat.

" But global warming has weakened the "barrier" that's supposed to keep it there and the "polar vortex" got out. Yep, it's true." - cruisingcouple

Well, from just a common man perspective it is true - have you noticed that the jet stream is always curved now? Its more like a snake than a jet. Around here the more it curves, the worse the weather gets. And there is no doubt that we are seeing more swings of temp and more big powerful storms, compared to when I was a kid. The Hudson river is frozen now and I have seen more than one tug and barge temporarily stuck in the ice. The Coast Guard moved a larger cutter here to try and break through. Tugs with oil barges are still moving up here.

 

[MarkofSeaLife]

You guys bleating Global Warming are so passé.

The sun had died in the ass and a mini ice age is on the way.

BBC News - Is our Sun falling silent?
Sun Scientists Debate Whether Solar Lull Could Trigger Another 'Little Ice Age'

 

[TakeFive]

There's a lot more to global climate than the local temperatures in one tiny part of the globe. A cold spell in the northeast US does not mean global warming has stopped. We just pay more attention to it because it's happening in a densely populated area.

 

[CruisingCouple]

And there is no doubt that we are seeing more swings of temp and more big powerful storms, compared to when I was a kid.

People's memories are short and their experience limited to the length of their life. In March 1977 Dale Movers tried to haul a two-story house across the ice on Lake Superior. Didn't make it - it broke through and sunk. But we don't have conditions this year even close to what we had then.

Two years earlier the queen of the Great Lake Freighter fleet, the Edmund Fitzgerald, left port on the afternoon of November 9, 1975 under the command of Captain Earnest M. Sorley, loaded with 29,000 tons of iron ore. The next day she was caught in an early winter storm with 75 kt wind and 60 foot seas and she went down with all hands off Whitefish point. None of the bodies of the crew were ever recovered.

And it's been going on for many many years.

In November 27, 1905 the 4,800 freighter SS Mataafa left Duluth Harbor and steamed for Two Harbors. The next day she was caught in a storm with 70 kt wind and 50-60 foot seas. Her Captain, Richard F. Humble, ordered her turned about and head back to Duluth Harbor. Both the tug and the ship could not make it through the canal so the tug was ordered to be cut loose. She got halfway between the piers on the lift bridge when a backwater rolled out. She got hit by heavy water on the stern, driving her prow down to the bottom and smashing her stern into the pier on the north side of the canal. The seas pulled her out of the canal, she got picked up by a 40 foot wave and spun around and slammed her stern into the south pier. The next wave picked her up and grounded her and broke her in two and she sank 600 yards from shore. Efforts to save the crew were fruitless. 9 men died and the body of one of them had to be chopped out of solid ice the next morning.

Oh yeah, these little jet stream curves and minor squalls we got today are nuthin. But if you study maritime history where the quirks and awesome power of mother nature's fury are pretty well recorded without having to believe what some government scientist says, you come to the realization that you ain't seen nuthin yet.

 

[MarkofSeaLife]

The jet stream curves are 'something'. Have a look in the BBC link i posted before as they are mentioned in there.

 

[CruisingCouple]

The media sensationalizes everything, including the weather, to keep people excitedly gripping the edge of their chair. It's all about ratings and getting reader base, not about reporting the facts. The more they can make people believe the sky is falling (or the planet is warming or cooling) the better it is because the general public eats it all right up.

 

[TakeFive]

The media sensationalizes everything, including the weather, to keep people excitedly gripping the edge of their chair. It's all about ratings and getting reader base, not about reporting the facts. The more they can make people believe the sky is falling (or the planet is warming or cooling) the better it is because the general public eats it all right up.

I agree fully.

It does not mean that everything they report is false.

 

[vega1860]

Meanwhile, in SE Alaska...

Meanwhile, here in SE Alaska, the early December snowfall has been gone for several weeks and we have been enjoying temperatures in the forties.

 

[Ulladh]

We may be just be going through a period of climate change that involves more variability than most have experienced in their life times.

Maybe the climate will settle into a new normal in 10 years or 10,000 years but I plan on enjoying it while I can, including skiing almost every other day this month on the 50 miles of trails in my local park in Philadelphia.

I am looking forward to maybe an early spring, hot summer, late fall and more time on the water.

 

[Sal Paradise]

People's memories are short and their experience limited to the length of their life.

Well 2 of your 3 examples were well within my lifetime.

Oh yeah, these little jet stream curves and minor squalls we got today are nuthin. But if you study maritime history where the quirks and awesome power of mother nature's fury are pretty well recorded without having to believe what some government scientist says, you come to the realization that you ain't seen nuthin yet.

The jet stream is one of the most powerful influences of weather in the North East. Perhaps THE most powerful. Beyond that the big nor easters that blow through here and take 5 days to traverse our area make the outside almost like an artic hurricane. If you think it's nuthin' I can assure you a walk across the Hudson Walkway when is blowing - 40 wind chill will make you think it's sumethin. Just ask the crew of a certain container ship