YES





peace


photos by: eric berglund

Freeze, thaw, freeze thaw. Thaw. Thaw. Thaw. Thaw. Most, if not all ice and snow on land has disappeared, which is not totally the norm for these parts in March. It sort of feels like winter had just started to get rollin, before it was cut short by these temps in the teens.

Put this birch bowl aside to dry, several weeks ago now. I'll probably be able to pull it out and sand it later this summer, along with all the other projects that have been stockpiling on the drying rack.


Just another rad shot of the lakes from NOAA.


peace
e

photos: eric berglund

Download the full size satellite image from NOAA here.

OK, so if you've checked this blog for a while now, you know a few things... of which A) Certain themes repeat themselves from one year to the next based, mostly on season and pass time; B) Thunder Bay Ontario is situated on Lake Superior; C) Winter can be long and drawn out in northwestern Ontario; D) Weather and Lake Superior are interesting subjects.

Which leads to:
The Fresh Aspects brief archival history of Lake Superior ice conditions in the month of March

And some photographic evidence:

March 5th, 2010 (most recent quality image).


March 10th, 2009- holy hell, look at all that ice!


March 10th, 2008- more than 2010



Despite the 3 feet of ice that may exist in some of the embayments on Lake Superior, we have seen significantly less ice cover in comparison to the last couple of years. So the forecast models put out in late fall 2009 were correct in predicting the outcome of a El Nino season.

So have i been surfing then? The short answer is NO. It doesn't matter how little ice there is, if there aren't any storms or significant winds, other than the common Northerly flow during the winter, there aren't many waves to be had.

The upshot has been a mild winter with good skiing and recent 14C temperatures, which i have to admit is pleasant despite the fact that i truly love winter.

peace
e

photos courtesy of NOAA GLERL Coastwatch

Lots of point and shoot these days for some reason; but so be it.

Off to the Sleeping Giant Loppet early Saturday morning. Warm and spring like, kind of bizarre. Pretty sure the temperature at the start line was hovering around 0C just before 10AM and well over 10C by mid day. Lot's of kids, families and smiling faces. Fast skis for the first bit, but progressively softening snow over the course of the race, made for a bit of slog by the end. Not as fast going as last year, that's for sure. Definitely felt the burn of not having the most restful sleep the night before. Oh, well. Dig deep, ski hard. Work all those muscles, bones and tendons to the fullest and feel good.









The magical white crow. Not that you can tell that it's body is white in this photo, but it is. He or she is nesting in the neighborhood, as N saw it on Friday and we saw it again today on a morning walk. The goal now is to sleuth it out and capture it with the big lens.



peace
e

photo's by eric berglund

Inspired by the Olympic spirit and the gorgeous weather, we've been skiing it up a ton. Here's Oskar and N post ski on Sunday, sporting the rudy projects (although, not the neon green ones that were all the rage at the Olympics this year).

The Big Lake



peace
e

photo's by eric berglund