Ice Out
Tuesday, April 15, 2014 at 10:10PM 
10" piece of very rotten S2 ice surrounded by individual crystals that have separated from the intact ice.
Lake Champlain has lost most of its ice in the past week, some of it in windy conditions and some of it with relatively little wind. Yesterday (April 14) about 35 square miles of the Inland Sea ice went out in a few hours in south winds around 30 mph and temps in the 70's.
Inland Sea on Lake Champlain (google maps)
The ice was being blown toward the north at about 1 mph. I would have thought that this would have lead to significant ice shoves, however there were very few. There was some rafting but nowhere near enough to account for the amount of ice moving north. It appears that even when ice covers most of the surface, there is enough stirring of the underlying water to get the deeper, warmer (34-36 degrees) up to the surface where it melts the ice (along with the sun and warm wind).
Ice pieces moring north (the peices are roughly 10' in dimension). The openings between the ice pieces would appear quickly (15 minutes), appearently with a sift to a more off shore wind direction.
One of very few relatively small ice shoves. This one is at KillKare State Park in St Albans, VT.
Bob
