There was a recent article in the New York Times about ice on the Hudson River. The story was about the Coast Guard Ice breaker that cleared the ice. The article discussed there is “fast” ice, that is fastened to the shore. There is brash ice, made up of pieces of ice floating in the water. Brash Ice can be trapped at check points to block the river. There is plate ice, caused when the fast ice has broken from its fastener, the shore. There is pancake ice, when the plate ice is shaped by running down the river and be ground by obstacles. This will be a useful vocabulary for me in observing the river.
The article went on to say that there was ice across the river at Germantown, NY, about the same latitude as Springfield, MA, and across the river at West Point, NY, about even with Middletown. The Captain of the boat reported this is the worst that he has seen since 2004, suggesting that this has happened before.
The article suggests that the Hudson River regularly freezes as far south as places in Connecticut.
I have been blogging that there is much more freezing of the Connecticut River this year, and that in previous years the river has been largely open south of the reactor at Vernon. My question for those who doubt the impact of the reactor is: what has kept the Connecticut River open in past years, when there has been major freezing of the Hudson. After all, the Hudson River is bigger and wider than the Connecticut. It should be harder to freeze.
Vernon Radiation Safety 