Copyright John A. Sperr

Preserving and Sailing the Historic Gaff Rigged Ice Yachts of New York's Hudson River Valley

HRIYC.ORG


CURRENT CONDITIONS

Weather  Links

Updated Ice Science

 

Sunday, Noon, February 25, 2024

Sailing at The Stockbridge Bowl

Warming to 60 F mid-week

Meteorological Spring arrives Friday

 

Several weeks of seasonal cold have built ice across New England. Maine has seen some of the larger lakes come in. Closer to home, an hour to our north and 10 miles east of Columbia County, lies the Stockbridge Bowl, a small 370 acre Massachusetts lake, that developed a decent sheet of ice after a series of rain, snow, freeze, and thaw cycles. Frank Wall first explored the sheet and the news quickly spread as hungry sailors from across the East made their way to the sheet yesterday. In gusty conditions, roughly 20 boats had a good day of sailing.

A right click in most browsers will offer the option to open the pictures full size.

 

 

 

 

By mid-week temperatures in the Hudson Valley will likely reach 50 - 60 degrees F for daytime highs. With the direct normal solar incidence peaking, the increasing length of day, and a chance of rain, the future of sailing this venue again this season seems rather slim. Almost every long range forecast I have seen is calling for a wet and warm March -- be careful on any sheet of ice going forward -- many lakes never fully chilled this winter and may mix out rapidly dissipating the surface ice overnight.

 

 

Sunday January 21, 2024  9:30 am

Warmer Weather Ahead

The Southern Jet Stream takes over on Monday

 

Sunday morning update January 21, 2024. Still no reports from the local lakes, but the sky cleared early last evening and good radiational cooling followed enhanced by the fresh afternoon dusting of snow. Locally, temperatures bottomed out at about 10 F early this morning, so many places had the opportunity to add an inch or two of thickness overnight -- perhaps a trip to my swamp is in order to check out the skating. On the GTel webcam the Coast Guard was observed at 9 am escorting a line of cargo ships northbound through the new ice. Inbocht Bay has iced over and the wind blown brash ice at North Germantown has solidified into a frozen line and is holding fast just north of the dock. All this will likely change again over the next three days once the arctic cold is displaced and scoured out.

Saturday morning update January 20, 2024. No sailing here -- some of the shallow lakes now have a full cover of ice but need to build thickness.  The thermometer bottomed out at 12 F last night and has rebounded to 25 F at this hour under an overcast sky -- if we only had some ice and a bit more wind. If it clears, it may drop a few degrees below this morning's mark, but if it stays cloudy we will likely stay above 15 F. We need at least a week of temperatures below 10 F to build ice on the Hudson River, but maybe some of the DN's and Arrows will find some ice somewhere tomorrow. There was a bit of brash ice floating past the GTel webcam late yesterday at North Germantown -- today there is a lot more with much of it looking to be nearly 2 inches in thickness. But it is all in motion and a long way from full coverage and locking in. The wind is starting to pick up out of the west and push it all to the eastern shore. The tides will be running very strong all week reaching minor flooding and near blow out conditions almost every day of the week. Add some wind and a storm, and places like the Hudson River Maritime Museum could see damaging flooding again.

A big warm up begins Monday, and will persist right into next weekend if the current forecasts hold. Rain and temperatures in the 40's are the headlines with the chance that it will all come to an end with a decent snowstorm. An inch of rain will set all of the local streams into flood conditions again and may take out any ice made this weekend. If the zonal warm winter jet stream pattern digs in and holds on, we could be skunked again this year.

 

 

A strong southerly wind all day and a new moon brought flooding tides last week from New York City to Troy. This screen capture from North Germantown at 3:15 Saturday afternoon January 13th was still an hour shy of high tide. The parking lot is 2 feet deep in water -- the dock nowhere to be seen -- the Amtrak rail bed flirting with submersion.

Note the green Astroturf across the river covering the landfill from the demolished cement plant and the snow squall moving out of the Helderberg's as the cold front begins to nose into the valley.

 
With the jetstream making an extreme hook into the Arctic from the Pacific Ocean, cold polar air is being drawn down into the center of the United States. Just north of Hawaii, the flow of the jet yesterday was clearly north into Alaska and then button hooking south into Montana and the Midwest creating wind chills in the -50's. Today the picture looks much different with a much stronger zonal flow becoming established from west to east directly into California. If this west to east connection becomes the dominant flow over the next two days, the arctic intrusion will be brief and we will go back to our unseasonably mild winter.

 

 

From the Hudson River Ice Yacht Club

Annual Dues ($25) are due

Please send a check payable the Hudson River Ice Yacht Club to the Treasurer:

                     Natalie Gilbert - Treasurer
                                 hudson river ice yacht club
        76 Tivoli Gardens
Tivoli NY 12583

 

"When the average daily temperature goes above 20° F, we are losing ice on the Hudson River"


Nice 2022 Athens photos here at this post of Peggy Huckel’s


Vixen and Whiff sailing on the Hudson River 2005
MP4 Video thanks to Bob Wills

Glenn Wheeler Drone -- YouTube Video from Athens

Where are the Ice Breakers? Control Click to open in a new tab.
Penobscot Bay
Sturgeon Bay

 

 

WHIFF at Hudson Winter Walk

Once again, the Hudson River Ice Yacht Club was invited to display one of our historic ice yachts at the annual Hudson Winter Walk street festival. This year we chose Commodore Irving Grinnell's 1875 yacht WHIFF which has been in the club's possession for many years. Grinnell had this yacht built specifically for display at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876 representing the state of the art in ice yacht development and construction. Master builder Jacob Buckhout was given free reign and a generous budget to create a most elegant and modern yacht. Nickel plated hardware, gold leaf trim accents, two carved griffins, and a suit of Egyptian Cotton sails graced the hall at the grand opening.

Not all of that luxury has survived to this day, but the basics are still in place and the yacht looks as smart and handsome as ever. Several hundred visitors looked on in awe when they learned the elegant yacht first sailed in 1876 is still an active member of our fleet today.

 

Sacandaga Reservoir 2023 Roundup

Determined to get in a bit of sailing this winter, there will be an expedition to Sacandaga Reservoir this weekend. People will begin arriving at the Broadalbin Public Boat Launch noon Friday to inspect the ice and assess the conditions. There is no guarantee there will be good sailing, but last weekend's subzero weather built enough ice to encourage people load up their boats and hit the road.

It will be very windy Friday and Saturday with gusts 40 - 50 mph -- bring your storm sails. A small heavy jib, might suffice those two days.

Broadalbin Weather Forecast

From the saratoga ice sailing facebook group:

" Just did a quick scout of Sacandaga at Broadalbin launch. Drilled 7”+ before drill died. Local reports say 10”+. Snow on surface now water. All we need now is cold temps. Those won’t arrive until Friday night (mid 20’s predicted). I’m thinking this has good potential for Saturday. Could sail it tomorrow but I think it will be puddly, and gusts over 40mph predicted. As always be very careful on this body of water due to it being a reservoir with constantly changing levels and frequent pressure ridges.  carefully Scout and drill everywhere before taking high speed runs."

 

 

 

Arctic Blast is History

We Begin a Warm and Wet Week

Sunday, February 5, 2023

The coldest air mass of this winter and the coldest since 2016 made a brief visit Friday afternoon through Saturday afternoon. My thermometer here at Beckwith Hill bottomed out at -7 F early Saturday Morning, recovered to near 10 F by 5pm and continued climbing to 20 F at midnight. Some shallow ponds that had a bit of a icy surface coating made two inches of new ice during this period, but the Hudson River has nothing but a bit of thin brash surface ice freely floating with the tide at this hour. Most of this will mix out and melt as temperatures go back to 40 F for most of the week. Runoff and surface stream flow will resume again tomorrow. Absent a 10 day Arctic outbreak similar to what happened in 1978 from February 9 - 19th, I think it is fair to speculate that we will likely be skunked this year. Summer may be cooler than last year (more like a "normal" year) according to some pundits, which would be a welcome change -- the current setup could be the prologue of a banner spring for 3 - 4 powerful Nor'easter's come March, April, and early May.

Arctic Cold in Downeast Maine

Thursday, February 2, 2023

The coldest air is just east of us in Newfoundland. Here in the Hudson Valley the wind is out of the south and temperatures have remained in the 20's for the past two nights. Some of the shallow ponds have formed a bit of ice, but we need temperatures of 10 F or lower to make some real thickness. The core of the jet stream is directly overhead running from Arizona to Maine pulling in warmer air aloft and fending off the Polar Arctic air mass to our north. Flights from Los Angeles to New York were getting a 150 mph boost in their ground speed yesterday. I ran BUFKIT this morning and the models are still showing a Friday to Saturday blast of near zero degree temperatures for Poughkeepsie, but looking at the maps visually, it looks like the coldest air is sliding east and retreating north and may miss us.

 

 

Still No Sailing in Sight

Hopes for an Early February
Freeze Seem to be Fading

January 29, 2023

The week started out with nuisance snow and rain followed by a cold night which slicked up area driveways. Warm and sunny weather followed and melted most of the snow by mid-week -- tonight a modest drop in temperature will follow the passage of a weak cold front, but overall, temperatures will remain above the seasonal average until the end of the week at which time frigid arctic air may bleed across the Niagara and St. Lawrence rivers into northern New England and build a few inches of ice. The large lakes such as Winnipesaukee in NH and Sebago ME are practically ice free and may barely close by the weekend before the warm air from the southwest scours out the cold air again and the lakes return to open water. Should this come to pass, we will probably be skunked again this season.

Quoting the National Weather Service:

"As mentioned, the ensembles and global guidance are in agreement
that the cold outbreak is short-lived with temperatures returning
back to normal by Sunday and the start of the new work week."
And Larry Cosgrove:
"Analog and numerical model forecasts for March are mostly in the mild
or warm category, so the clock is running if you want a more typical winter
setting to arrive."
March could be wild with the clash of air masses spawning thunderstorms, tornados,
and powerful nor'easters east of the the Rockies.

 

No Sailing in Sight

January 22, 2023

High pressure off the Delmarva Coast will squeeze a weak low pressure system inland of the coast until it arcs east through Long Island into the Atlantic. A mix of rain and snow will develop late this afternoon and early evening across the Northeastern US. Valley locations should see mostly rain and little snow accumulations while snow, perhaps as much as 8 inches, will fall in the higher elevations to our south and west and across much of New England.

Temperatures should fall to near normal levels by midweek as another stronger storm moves across the country from New Mexico to the Tennessee Valley and into the St. Lawrence Valley. If the current forecast track holds, we should see rain here in the Valley from this storm as well.

Some forecasters see the potential for an arctic outbreak the last week of February, but with no ice in place, winter winding down, and the general global pattern of the cold air sitting on the pole all winter, I think we would be hard pressed to get anything more than a smattering of ice that will rapidly disappear. We would need a ten day deep freeze of zero degree nights to generate some short lived sailing. In 1978, we had such a freeze from Feb 9 - 19th and there has been late ice many years -- but making 8" of ice for the big boats from nothing is hard to do after Valentine's Day in this era of global warming.

January 16, 2023

While the West Coast is getting battered with round after round of wind, snow, and rain storms, the East remains relatively tranquil and warm for January. The large nearly stationary low that developed off the Delmarva Coast last weekend is slowly weakening, but still managed to create strong winds with areas of snow, sleet, and freezing rain from Cape Cod to Downeast Maine last night. A bit of light snow even made it west into the Taconics, Berkshire Hills, and Green Mountains for a few brief hours.

The sub-zero air mass is steadily shrinking and retreating toward Greenland this week -- the long range numerical models show little change from last week -- the cold air sits well to our north and once a week burps a weak pulse our way across the Canadian border. I see no real reason for this to change in the next two weeks -- once we are into February it could be a quick slide into a train of wet snow and warm sunny days where our sailing prospects become nil.

In the Northeast in late February and early March, a number of factors come together that cause the direct normal intensity of the daily Solar radiation to reach its annual maximum of about 10% above the average value of 1000 Watts per square meter. People who are outdoors all day in the winter often have a gentle suntan by late February or early March. If you are sitting outdoors in a chair watching the birds at the feeder or if you are charting the output of your rooftop solar system, the bump in output is very noticeable.

 

 

 5 x 5

5 Subjects as Seen
by 5 Photographers

Morton Memorial Library

82 Kelly Street
Rhinecliff, NY 12574

Saturday January 7, 2023
4:30 - 7:00 pm

 

 

 

-----------------------------------------------

 

Announcing Hard Water Sailing:

The Ice Boats of the Hudson River

A Solo Exhibition of Photography by
Adam T. Deen

The Stewart House
Athens, New York

The Exhibition Showcases the Hudson River Ice Yacht Club

Opening: Sunday, January 8, 2023 3 - 6 pm

Exhibition: Jan 8 - Mar 31, 2023 (Closed for February)

 

 

 

January 2023 Weather Outlook

As the new year begins, we are in a tranquil and warm pattern. NOAA's Climate Prediction Center outlook for the January - March 2023 period concludes:

"Positive Sea Surface Temperature anomalies persist over the Gulf of Mexico and along the East Coast with the largest anomalies offshore of the Mid-Atlantic and New England."

While some see analogues to the cold winter of 1994 which gave us good ice and sailing on the Hudson River from Verbank to Hudson, this seems unlikely to me given the current trends. The first two storms of the winter resulted in what I consider to be "busted forecasts" -- the phasing of the low pressure systems off the Atlantic Coast that the models predicted, did not occur. Last weekend's epic storm in Buffalo was the result of the low pressure center developing north of New York State in Canada resulting in rain and warm weather wrapping into the system east of the Catskill Mountains to the Atlantic Coast, and very cold air being funneled across the Great Lakes triggering copious amounts of Lake Effect Snowfall. While two cold nights did bring the Hudson River down to freezing early in the week, by Thursday it was 60 F in Poughkeepsie once again as the cold air retreated to areas north and northwest of Hudson Bay. At North Germantown Landing, what was free flowing ice on Tuesday is once again entirely blue water. Northern Maine may make a bit of ice during the long nights of the coming week.

Looking Ahead -- Animated Global Data Modeled


Click and hold on the globe and rotate the view to North America.

Click on "Anim" to put it in motion or hover over the list of hourly forecast times to step  through the model output.

Note in the forecast graphics that the dominant circulation remains a zonal pattern west to east across the central and eastern USA with occasional weak pulses of cold arctic air barely crossing the Canada - USA border.

The cold air can sit on the poles all winter if there is no general circulation moving it to the lower latitudes. It looks to me like we are in for a warm winter into at least mid February if you believe the forecast modeling.

In my view, the forecast models have not done very well the last two weeks, so I tend to ignore everything beyond five days out. Larry Cosgrove publishes his updates about noon on Saturday's -- we'll get his take shortly.

 

End of the 2022 Season Recap

With a second winter of the COVID Pandemic, we tried to maintain a low profile of our on ice activities -- but that's hard to do in this era of social media and universal Internet access. Within an hour of arrival to set up at Murderer's Creek, word was out, and during the next two days there were several hundred visitors to the ice. There was more pushing, than sailing, but people enjoyed the scene and seemed happy to be out of the house and participating in the small gathering of these old ice yachts that were built in the 1880 - 1910 era of our history.

The winter was marked by less than average precipitation and one deep freeze period of January 21 - 31, 2022.

Contrast this to the last time we had very good ice boating on the Hudson River. In 2014, we had three deep freezes -- Jan 21 - 30, Feb 3 - 13, and Feb 25 - Mar 6th -- and a 21 inch snowfall on Feb 14th. The snow fell and saturated on the river between the deep freezes and build a nice thick layer of snow ice on top of the stronger brash ice below. The NSIBYC restored 50' Ice Yacht ROCKET was trailered up, assembled, and made its first sail in 100 years.

While we were hopeful for some sailing off Cheviot or Barrytown this year, it's clear why that did not happen and why the river ice broke up so quickly.

 

 

Friday, February 11, 2022 -- End of the Season

Murderer's Creek opened up this afternoon and one person went through the ice -- fortunately in shallow water up to his chest -- and was immediately retrieved with no ill effects.

A strong south wind, abundant sunshine, and 50° F temperatures rapidly eroded the ice in Athens today.  More of the same is expected tomorrow. Two boats have been removed, and the rest of the fleet will be off the ice by this evening or tomorrow morning.

Sorry, but that's the way it goes in this sport -- maybe next year.


 


                   Current Jetstream Forecast and Surface Conditions -- Image by Environment Canada

 

Image

Questions about late-week wintry system; Second poll question for 2013  weather top stories | Weather Journal | roanoke.com
Radar Picture of the Superstorm of March 13, 1993 -- 32" of snow in Rhinebeck NY


20 Radar Road Sedgwick Maine -- Sunrise over the Mountains of Acadia National Park

 


 

 

Water is Weird -- A bit of updated "The Science of Ice"

 
 

Why is ice slippery? Ongoing research seems to be in agreement that it is not the pressure of the weight of the blade melting a film of water beneath it, but rather that ice is inherently slippery as the result of a perpetual film of water a few molecules thick that exists at it's surface (the blue molecules in the picture below) beyond the well organized and rigid hexagonal structure of the solid ice (the red molecules). This tiny layer can be further enhanced by the friction of an object sliding over it or plowing through it.

Davide Donadio, UC Davis

Why Ice is Slippery                     Explaining Ice: The Answers Are Slippery

PhysRevX.11.011025.pdf             PhysRevX.9.041025.pdf

Physics_of_ice_friction.pdf          SciPostPhys_3_6_042.pdf

Iceboat Launch Site Maps & Directory for the Eastern US


Email John Sperr      On-the-Ice Cell # Request

AIS Ship Tracking

ADS-B Aircraft Tracking

Archive of annotated USCG Aerial Photos of winter ice on the Hudson River 2007 - present

home

right click and select "view image" to see photos in full resolution

 
 


SPIDER on Tivoli Bay -- Photo by Andy Wainwright ~1985

 

 

 

 

PAST ACTIVITY

 

Rocket Launch at Astor Point, Rokeby 2014

 

March has brought some of the most memorable snowstorms in years past

1888     1960     1993

Contributions from friends and the general public to assist in our restoration projects are always welcome.
It's a lot of work to maintain, assemble, and remove even a small fleet boats for such a meager amount of sailing.

 


 
 


Peter, Debbie, and Lori arrive at Athens


Reid Bielenberg with VIXEN masking up during a break in the sailing


Peter Guttman, Samantha, and Chase Guttman on the ice in Athens February 2021


The ice was marginal all the time -- two days after the picture above, it was done.


Murderer's Creek, where boats are put on and taken off, is completely open


A quick freeze in early March yielded two or three days of sailing on Orange Lake


Georgie II, owned by Steve Foster of NJ, is one of the smartest looking and fastest on the ice


Kalitta Air, which flies the USPS mail daily between Los Angeles and Stewart airports, hand flew the final approach to Runway 27
and banked their 747-400 freighter into a steep left turn to get a good view of the ice yachts sailing on Orange Lake.


NSIBYC friends packing up after a great afternoon of sailing Orange Lake


Saturday afternoon end of the sailing -- all the boats were packed up and off the ice the next day. Ice was done for the season Monday noon.

 

   

 

 



Weather Links



Stevens Tech SSWS & NYHOPS Zone Forecast Tivoli Bay 12 Image 7 Day WPC Surface Prognosis
Rain or Snow -- Thickness Map Regional Summary -- NY, NJ, CT, MA NCAR Forecast Maps     Larger NCAR Maps
Northeast 4 hour Radar Loop (wait) broken Jetstream Forecast        Surface Map        Jetstream Climate Reanalyzer U Maine Hourly Forecast Maps
US Radar Single Image Current Snow Depth Water Vapor Forecast Loop
East Composite Radar/Sat 12hr Loop North Germantown NY Hudson River GTEL Web Camera US Hazardous Weather Outlook
Multi-day Quant Precip Forecast Loop
 WTEN Interactive Radar and Futurecast 10 day GFS Temp Forecast Animation
Climate.Gov Northeast Wind Speed (Kts) & Streamlines 31 Frame Forecast Animation
NEXLAB Visible Satellite NA Temperature 10° F Contour Northeast Temp & Pressure
GOES East Satellite Loop US Temperature 5° F Contour Quantitative Precipitation Forecast

 

Iceboat Launch Site Maps & Directory for the Eastern US

Safety


Brakes On? 
photo Copyright Brian Reid, December 2002

 


Rules-of-the-Road

Email John Sperr

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HRIYC.ORG is neither the official website, nor am I the webmaster, of the Hudson River Ice Yacht Club. I am a long standing member of the Club and during the sailing season  I frequently post photographs and information on this, my own personal website, about current iceboating activity in the Hudson Valley and beyond. I am the sole person responsible for the presentation of content and the opinions expressed herein. Interesting photographic contributions are welcome and appreciated -- I spend most of my time on the ice skippering and far too often fail to capture the best images of the day.                    ©John A. Sperr MMXXII