satellite 3/5

[Robert O'Brien]

There was a satellite image of the lake taken yesterday. Big lead present from Appletree bay to NY. I could see it from Bolton Valley on Wednesday.

https://browser.dataspace.copernicus.eu/?zoom=11&lat=44.53714&lng=-73.29048&themeId=DEFAULT-THEME&visualizationUrl=U2FsdGVkX18g3fVcw5ldfmxLcqOVcH8KBDmo8%2FOCg4rDpWa5V3JN%2Bh9%2F7HbT77HXE3C7YHC%2BD9QA%2FFWAdTbZo5HmrWkRv0cmg4MKGmGYlSl2S0BY2DTvSXb0CU%2FypGJm&datasetId=S2_L2A_CDAS&fromTime=2026-03-05T00%3A00%3A00.000Z&toTime=2026-03-05T23%3A59%3A59.999Z&layerId=1_TRUE_COLOR&demSource3D=%22MAPZEN%22&cloudCoverage=30&dateMode=SINGLE

[Charlene Wallace]

Is the black section from South Hero to Cumberland Head open water, do you think? (the darkest spot, shaped like a slash) 

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[Doug Merrill]

Yes, I believe that is the ferry route.

Doug

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[Evan Perkins]

This image is super helpful for folks If we get a chance to skate on the Broad lake again, provided the texture is good enough and it resurfaces. Although we will lose quite a bit of ice during this next thaw, it is certainly not enough to melt or completely weaken the ice on Lake Champlain(there will definitely be areas that will be significantly weakened , but not the bulk of the Ice most likely )However, because of this lead, there is lots of opportunity for Ice movement. There is enough space provided by this lead that Ice could start shifting around and once Ice can move around then it can break down much quicker. Lakes that are completely locked in take a much longer time to thaw than lakes that have open water somewhere. Having a general sense of where open water is and the wind direction on the day that you were choosing to Skate is going to be a upmost importance if the opportunity rises to Skate on the broad Lake again.

     Some things to keep in mind are that black ice degrades much quicker than snow ice because it allows the sun through and can degrade through the process of candling much quicker.               Another important thing to keep in mind is that there are some bays on the lake that got snowed on with really thin ice ,parts of them may have slushed out and resurfaced and continued to thicken, but other parts may not have or may have only thickened a little bit. So in some cases places that have been frozen longer will actually be quite thin because snow was protecting relatively thin ice for a month or two. Keep this in mind when exploring bays and try to remember the weather history of the particular section of Ice that you are on. For instance, if you knew it at one point to be 12 inches thick that's a good thing. But if you never remember that Ice being thick and then it was snow covered proceed with caution.  There are also a couple other factors to consider after a thaw like this . We had a relatively low water table going into the winter, with relatively low river flow. This allowed thick ice to form around the outflows of a lot of the rivers that flow into Lake Champlain. Many of these rivers have significantly  risen in the last couple days. This will allow Ice to be under thin near the mouth of rivers, potentially quite far out into the lake. Under thinning is quite hazardous because it is sometimes impossible to read from the surface, particularly on snow ice. Also, if there is enough water level to raise the lake level, that can create a moat around the lake, particularly on shallow beach beaches this presents an inconvenience for getting on the ice, but much more importantly it provides room for the movement of ice plates, which can obviously strand skaters and break up the lake ice much quicker. Let's hope for some more Skating in a week or so, I think the inland sea might hold some real possibilities as it never completely slushed out and may return to Black Ice . It is important to note that in general the areas of the lake that had the most amount of snow over smooth ice are the areas that are likely to come out of this thaw the best as they will have the least amount of surface degradation. Just some thoughts.   Happy hopefully Skating,Evan

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