2018 Nipissing Ice Report, Kokemachine style!

I am along the North shore west of North Bay. As this is the most open part of the lake I'm sure the conditions area little different in Callander Bay.

Amazing, and thanks for the updates. Keep em coming

hi guys is there any ice around beacon island and the gull islands yet?

Yes South Bay has been froze over for about a week now.

Good news, thanks Jeff

[YOUTUBE]https://youtu.be/6ha8PearbCc[/YOUTUBE]

Looks like you took one for the team. I checked today too. At the shoreline where multiple layers of broken ice had formed there was 6". Once I got past that at a water depth of about 2' there was only 2". I don't see much of a change for the near future, temperatures are mild and the lake is still cooling... Yes unfortunately the ice cap formed before the lake reached the magic temperature of 4C. Now the lake has to still cool the entire water column, which will slow down the ice growth for the near future.,

Where do you get this magic 4C info from.

Thanks Jeff appreciate the info

This literally makes no sense.

The lake turned over weeks ago and was in the high 30's around November 12th. Two days later ice had started to form on the surface meaning the surface temperature had achieved 32* (freezing point of water)

It is impossible for the lake to have ice on it if these temps haven't been achieved. The lake is as cool as it's going to get until ice out.

Where do you get this magic 4C info from.

That's one of the strange properties of water. As water looses heat it contracts (gets denser), but when it hits 4C it has reached it's maximum density and now begins to expand.
Until the entire water column has reached 4C, you can't make good ice because the lake is still dumping out heat, and this robs the lake from forming ice at a fast rate. The cold weather we had this November made the top layer of the lake freeze over but the lake was still at 7C. It is now at 6C but I expect that the temperature sensor will drop down to 5C in a few days. Every lake varies somewhat in that the deeper the lake is, the longer it takes to cool.
My rudimentary calculation for Lake Nipissing shows that each degree of cooling is equivalent to forming about 2 1/2" of ice, so when it froze over at 7C, that is equivalent to loosing 7 1/2" of ice growth.

FERDA

I'm booked for the 2-4th of January. I've only been up to Nippising once (last year) so I'm unaware of how quickly the lake freezes and how much ice they have to have to put the huts out. Does it look like there will be enough ice for the first week of January as far as the weather reports go? Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Most operators will pull on about 8" of ice. Seeing as the lake is already locked (about 2 weeks ahead of last year), it looks as though we're headed towards another great season of ice conditions.

Be sure to follow this thread as Kokemachine does a great job of providing daily ice reports to let us know what's going on with ice formation. I would think by next weekend if the forecast holds true, you'll start to see posts from people venturing out from shore to report on ice thickness.

Where do you get this magic 4C info from.

That's one of the strange properties of water. As water looses heat it contracts (gets denser), but when it hits 4C it has reached it's maximum density and now begins to expand.
Until the entire water column has reached 4C, you can't make good ice because the lake is still dumping out heat, and this robs the lake from forming ice at a fast rate. The cold weather we had this November made the top layer of the lake freeze over but the lake was still at 7C. It is now at 6C but I expect that the temperature sensor will drop down to 5C in a few days. Every lake varies somewhat in that the deeper the lake is, the longer it takes to cool.
My rudimentary calculation for Lake Nipissing shows that each degree of cooling is equivalent to forming about 2 1/2" of ice, so when it froze over at 7C, that is equivalent to loosing 7 1/2" of ice growth.

🤔

When the entire lake reaches 40 F, the surface water cools further, dropping below 40 F. Because this water is now less dense than the surrounding water, it will stay on the top and continue to cool. Once the surface water falls to 32 F, it freezes. The freezingthen spreads downward into the lake and the ice thickens.