Friday, March 22, 2019

The Ice Comes and Goes

One of the biggest changes on Georgian Bay over the seasons is the coming of ice cover over the winter season, followed eventually by its disappearance.  But the change does not really match the actual dates of the seasons and it comes and goes quickly when it does.

Cold temperatures only built this year toward the end of February as the surface temperatures of the water dropped.  These cold dark waters were in the end of that month.

The water close to the shore froze first, spreading outward in these strange ice pancakes.

We were coming back from Owen sound three weeks ago when suddenly there it was, the entire bay nearly frozen over. 

Down at the shore it was white as far as you could see.  It never did get more frozen than this because as soon as the ice reached its peak, it started to retreat.

The gulls were able to find a wet spot throughout the 'freeze'.

And with relatively solid ice close to shore the fishermen were back, heading out with their supplies.  For those of us who thought this was unsafe, he's headed toward a shallow sandbar off the mouth of the river.  One of them wrote on a local website that the spot where they were fishing was three feet of solid ice.

But almost the next day, just ten days ago now, the ice started its retreat, softening into slush.

And on Monday of this week, we drove over the hill and there it was; the ice had vanished across the entire bay in just three weeks.  The coldest part of winter is over.




15 comments:

  1. Wonderful shots, and quite a contrast.

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  2. Those first and last pictures tell the entire story. Love the fact that you're showing this to your readers (me especially). :-)

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  3. What a view that is...looking down that road!

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  4. Our coldest weather came in February and early March. - Margy

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  5. Amazing to see all those miles of ice disappear. Those ice fishermen/women are a hardy breed!!

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  6. I want to show that photo of the bay frozen over to my grandsons. They spend about a month on the north side of the bay.

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  7. Sensible gulls, and a brave fisherman. Even if I was sure there was ample frozen ice under my feet, dry land, even if covered in snow, would be my preferred place. Love the difference in ice as far as you could see, and then water. Your winter might be ending as ours is coming along with the colder,or cooler nights and darker mornings.

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  8. It's quite a dance the ice pack does each Spring with it's ebb and flow along the shoreline. Here today, gone tomorrow, and back again the next day after that. You and I are lucky to live along the shorelines of the Great Lakes where we can see all these things just a short distance away.

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  9. Beautiful photos. Sure does look cold.

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  10. I've never seen that much ice especially over water. February/March for us is late Summer early Autumn and it's cooling down nicely.

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  11. I enjoy seeing large bodies of water frozen, so impressive.
    Lovely spring to you!

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  12. I am always a little wary of walking on the ice no matter how solid they say it is! And every year it seems a couple of vehicles go through it.

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  13. I've been off-line...trying to catch up. Hope you've been well.

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