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February 18, 2003West Bay freezes for first time since 1996Authorities will not vouch for safety of iceBy BILL O'BRIENRecord-Eagle staff writer TRAVERSE CITY - Any doubts that it's been a hardy, old-fashioned winter can be put on ice - as in a frozen Grand Traverse Bay. The U.S. Coast Guard has officially declared West Grand Traverse Bay as frozen - for the first time in seven years - following another weekend cold snap during which temperatures plunged below zero overnight under calm, moonlit skies.
"I can't tell you the thickness of the ice, but it's definitely frozen over," said Lt. Richard Nameniuk, a Coast Guard helicopter pilot stationed in Traverse City. It's the first time that the bay has frozen since 1996, easily the longest stretch of non-freezes since records started being kept back in 1851. The previous longest stretches have been three years each - from 1953 to 1955 and from 1990 to 1992. Prior to the past dozen years or so, it was more of an event when the bay didn't freeze. West Bay was frozen for seven winters during the 1980s, for eight winters in the '70s and for nine winters back in the '60s. For the century-plus before that, the bay froze at least seven times each decade, and typically in eight or more seasons. "It used to freeze pretty nearly every year," says local historian and author Larry Wakefield. "Back in the 1800s and the early part of the 1900s, there wasn't even two consecutive winters when the bay didn't freeze ... three was unheard of until the 20th century." Wakefield said the weather this season is what many longtime residents of the region remember as "normal" in winters past, when ice fishing, skating and other activities were a common sight on the frozen bay. "We don't have that type of winter anymore," he said. Weather experts say more than a month of sub-freezing temperatures with plenty of snow, and the lack of any significant mid-winter thaw, have created the suddenly icy conditions. "We've noticed the ice (formation) along Lake Michigan and Lake Supervisor has really picked up within the last week or so," said meteorologist Patrick Bak of the National Weather Service office in Gaylord. Bak said one positive result from the iced-up bay, and the spreading ice cover over the Great Lakes, is that it will tend to slow down the lake-effect snow squalls that have dumped dozens of inches of snow in the past six weeks. Authorities will vouch for the existence of the ice but not the safety of it. Coast Guard personnel said there are still a few patches of open water in the outer parts of the bay, and large cracks in some of the interior areas closer to shore. Authorities advise using caution when traveling on any frozen body of water.
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