Evening Sky

8:00 am temp: 46
Yesterday: 61/46
Normal: 72/45

A bonus to the storms that move through in June are the lighting effects the clouds can create in the evening. On this recent evening there was also a double rainbow.

Got Snow? Yup

8:00 am temp: 8
Yesterday: 29/8
Normal: 29/15

Plenty of snow out there, and the most ice we’ve seen yet this year on the lake.

We got 8 inches of new, fluffy snow in about an hour on Friday evening. It’s made for great skiing.

Today is going to be sunny, cold, and beautiful. Forecast high of 11 with wind chill of minus 10. We’re headed out for a day of cross country skiing.

Christmas Morning

14 °

Fresh Ice

8:00 am temp: 12
Yesterday: 11/3
Normal: 30/17

Ice has started forming along the edges of the lake.

Looking out toward the street this morning.

The ice grows mostly at night. It started three days ago, and each day it extends farther out into the lake. Already more of the lake is covered with ice than at any point last winter.

It warmed up to 12 at our house yesterday, so Tess and I resumed our mid-day walks. A couple weeks ago that would have seemed cold.

This morning we woke up to 7 or 8 inches of fluffy snow and big flakes coming down.

River Skate

8:00 am temp: 6
Yesterday: 8/-14
Normal: 31/17

Well, I didn’t hibernate yesterday after all. The sun came out and we were lured outside to try skating on the Whitefish River.

There was good, thick ice on the river. Steve chopped a couple holes with his hatchet and at about 4 inches down there was still no sign of water. The surface was pretty good, slightly bumpy, and there was a thin layer of snow on top.

We skated for miles, the only ones on the river, except for…the person who had planted the idea, Don Scharfe, and his wife. I forgot my camera, so above is a video Steve shot.

I enjoyed the changing views and the quiet of cruising down the river. There’s snow in the forecast, which may mean the end of ice skating, but there could be some good skiing on the river ahead this winter.

Time to Hibernate

8:00 am temp: -5
Yesterday: 4/-13
Normal: 31/17

Thin sheets of ice collect along the shore

I came home last night around 11:30. It was -10 at our house. It took a while to warm up my toes. I’m hunkered down at home today.

We saw the first signs of ice forming on the lake yesterday, thin sheets that the wind had pushed up against the shore.

A friend who lives south of town told me she saw what looked like a big cloud yesterday morning, which was the plume of steam coming off the lake. It’s amazing how long it takes, even in this severe cold, for the water temperature in the lake to drop to freezing.

Winter Gray

8:00 am temp: 30
Yesterday: 29/26
Normal: 20/27

Just a typical winter day at State Park. Tess and I decided to forego the swimming.

There was a fine, light snow falling today. More in the forecast the next few days, along with a cold front. Calling for a low of -3 Fahrenheit Wednesday. Last year we didn’t have any subzero weather.

We’re headed to the town of Hot Springs, where even if we don’t see the sun we can sit outdoors and soak in hot mineral water. It’s a good winter coping technique.

Icy Wonders

8:00 AM temp: 21
Yesterday: 28/23
Normal: 34/21

Four-legged icicle.

There were some interesting ice formations along the edge of Whitefish Lake yesterday.

What a beautiful planet we live on.

Snow falling on swans

8:00 AM temp: 25
Yesterday: 39/27
Normal: 48/27

There are a couple dozen swans on the lake this morning. I’ve been watching them through the telescope, white bodies floating on the gray water with snow lightly falling. It’s beautiful in a Japanese, wintry sort of way.

Tundra or trumpeter swans? I can’t tell from this distance.

The mountain

8:00 AM temp: 30
Yesterday: 44/16
Normal: 47/26

A February morning on the mountain

Despite the mild winter, the local ski hill has had a pretty good snow year. As of today, Whitefish Mountain Resort, formerly known as The Big Mountain, has a snowpack of 112 inches (285 cm) at the summit (elevation 6817 ft or 2078 m), and 30 inches (77 cm) at the village area (elevation 4464 ft or 1361 m). That’s a little less at the bottom of the hill than in recent years, but very respectable at the summit.

Most of the lifts and ski runs are on south-facing slopes, which may make the area particularly vulnerable to warming temperatures in coming years. Fingers crossed that we have many more winters of skiing there.

Spring wind

8:00 AM temp: 33
Yesterday: 49/28
Normal: 46/25

Sun and clouds

It snowed this morning and clouds obscured the mountains for much of the day. In the afternoon the clouds lifted, the wind picked up and there were pockets of sun.

The afternoon wind sent waves smashing up against the ice, breaking off chunks. I watched a pair of Canada geese standing on a piece of ice about the size of a surfboard, bobbing in the waves, then navigating their way among the ice chunks back to open water.

Receding ice

8:00 AM temp: 45
Yesterday: 54/30
Normal: 45/25

For Tess it’s swimming season again. For the rest of us…well, we’ll wait.

The ice by City Beach shrank noticeably the past couple days, but hasn’t broken up yet. Usually the Whitefish Lake Institute has a fundraiser where they suspend a large rock above the ice and people guess which day in the spring the ice will melt enough that the rock falls into the water. Typically that day is in April, but that part of the lake never froze this year.

Melting Glaciers

The glaciers in Glacier National Park have been shrinking since about 1850, the end of the Little Ice Age. When the area was established as a national park in 1910, there were 150 glaciers. Today, there are 25, and these are expected to disappear entirely by 2030.

Glaciers have been present in this landscape for 7,000 years, so we are witnessing the end of an ecological era.

As someone who has lived near the park and hiked its trails for 25 years, this prospect causes a lurch in my gut. Two USGS scientists, Dan Fagre and Lisa McKeon, created an exhibit about the disappearing glaciers called “Losing a Legacy.” That name captures the sadness many feel about the extinction of these ice fields. But, as depressing as the idea of a Glacier-Less National Park is, that is only the beginning.

As a park naturalist explained, once the glaciers are gone, the entire ecosystem will change. The bright turquoise color of glacial lakes, caused by light reflecting off the silt, or “glacial flour,” created as the glaciers grind against the rock, will eventually fade once the supply of silt dwindles. Without a constant flow of water from glaciers through the summer, vegetation will change, including those gorgeous green subalpine meadows filled with wildflowers. As the vegetation changes, wildlife will change its patterns and follow its food sources. Forests will become drier, and more frequent and more intense wildfires are expected.

No one knows what Glacier National Park will look like in 50 years, or 100. But Fagre and McKeon of the USGS have done a great job capturing what the change of the past 100 years looks like. The images above from their web site (http://www.nrmsc.usgs.gov/repeatphoto/overview.htm) look down on one of my favorite hiking destinations, Grinnell Glacier.

Below are photos I took at Grinnell Glacier in 2009. They show a ground-level view of the ice-melt lake, the glacier, and the striated rocks visible in the 2012 photo above.

Grinnell Glacier and ice-melt lake 2009

Striated rocks where Grinnell Glacier has receded, 2009