Ice is Nice

The Washington Post has an interesting article on the recent spate of Ice in Chesapeake and Delaware Bays caused by our recent cold snap (now busted by today's 65 F weather; but we're headed back to the deep freeze tonight): Before and after: Watch the Chesapeake and Delaware bays freeze over

It’s actually not that common for ice to form on the Chesapeake and Delaware bays, but the recent historically low temperatures caused large swaths of these significant water bodies to ice over.

The before-and-after is pretty awesome.

On Nov. 29, Washington, hit a balmy 62 degrees. Obviously, there was zero ice on either of the bays or the Potomac River. But after weeks of punishing Arctic temperatures, courtesy of the polar vortex, ice has covered large areas of both the Chesapeake and Delaware bays.

The Jan. 7 image allows you to see the ice especially abundant in the coves and backwaters on the Eastern Shore. Prevailing winds from west to east push the ice from one side of the bay to the other.

Click to enlarge. Now watch the ice drift around on Delaware:

Almost 2 weeks of temps below freezing, there is a lot of ice on area waters. This loop from Tue. (during daylight hours) shows ice on the Delaware Bay moving with the tides. Imagery is from GOES-16, the latest geostationary satellite. pic.twitter.com/7r4FVqNMtG

— NWS Mount Holly (@NWS_MountHolly) January 10, 2018

Speaking from here, the ice is gone from the waters edge, and the ice in the harbor is rotten and breaking up. The water is damn cold now (about 36 F), so the next week of freezing weather should produce more ice pretty easily.

And if you want to see it in pretty colors: