My friend and former colleague Andy Zabloski from MAG Canada sent me a couple of pictures from near downtown Kenora. The photos were taken yesterday by his co-pilot, Jorge Escrina.
As usual, you can click on these pictures to see a high-resolution, zoomable version.
Winnipeg River, Safety Bay.
This is looking south with an open section of the Winnipeg River looping around Tunnel Island in the foreground. Norman, Cameron Bay and the Keewatin Bridge are above the centre of the photo. Andy points out that the ice on Safety Bay looks pretty thin.
As usual, there’s also some open water in Keewatin Channel, and here’s a closer look at that. For this picture, the plane would have been over Gun Club Island, and the camera is pointing south. Part of Treaty Island is in the middle of the shot, and further back there are narrow stretches of open water on either side of Channel Island. Thompson Island, The Manitou and the Barrier Islands are visible in the distance.
Treaty Island, Keewatin Channel, The Manitou.
Thanks Andy and Jorge!
Our Hourly Mean Temperature (an average of all the hourly temperature readings) for February slipped to -7.3ºC courtesy of those cold days and nights at the end of the month. That still looks good compared to last year’s number of -12.8ºC and 2022’s -18.8ºC.
The weather forecasts say we’ll slip back to colder temperatures for a while before seeing above-freezing weather in a week or two.
So despite today’s mild temperatures, we’ll still be making ice for a bit.
Regular Ice Patrol updates usually begin when Safety Bay is open from shore to shore, as that’s one of the first big stretches of ice to let go.
Aside from the fact that I got fresh aerial photographs, my main reason for posting today was to test the upload speed on my new internet connection. I’m very pleased.
Technical notes: This year I finally have high-speed symmetrical internet. Previously, my upload speed was much slower than my download speed, so posting a large batch of high-resolution photos took a long time. Now I can upload large image files in seconds instead of minutes.
Shout-out to tbaytel for their affordable new fiber-optic internet plans.
March 1, 2024: Meteorological Spring | Lake of the Woods Ice Patrol (wordpress.com)