Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF)

If you haven’t already had a chance to observe comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF), according to Colin Caissie (who manages the Brower Observatory located on the Fergusson property in Whitefield), the best chance to spot the comet will be this coming Wednesday evening before the gibbous moon rises at 7:56 PM and interferes with the comet’s visibility. The comet is rather faint  now (magnitude 8.57) and will be located just West of iota Aurigae in the Southeast and close to overhead, at an altitude of about 80°. Look for a small greenish fuzzy patch, with or without a tail. Sirius (the Dog Star) is the brightest star in the sky and it will be low on the southeastern horizon. You might also recognize Orion south of the comet’s location, and Castor and Pollux, the two bright stars in Gemini. Auriga is also a well known constellation, and Alpha Aurigae will be the brightest star in the sky at this time, close by just above and to the left (East) of the comet. Continue reading →

I’m calling Ice In today, December 22, 2022. I drove around the lake earlier checking the ice from various locations with binoculars looking for open water and I couldn’t find any. And that’s that, as my friend Ernest would say. It remains to be seen whether the ice survives the warm weather, heavy rain, and high wind forecast for tomorrow. Time will tell.

Today is day 355 of the year which is a little later than the average of 348 for ice-in, and there were 268 ice-free days in 2022; average is 252 ice-free days. We really don’t have data going back far enough to be able to see any long-term trends.

The lake was *almost* frozen over back on the 13th but there were still a few patches of open water to be found. David Hodsdon did some research into definitions of ice-in and he came up with “Ice-in is when the lake is completely covered with ice for it least one day and night and remains at least partially (say 50%) covered from then on.“

Danny Bell sent me this picture this afternoon. He and his wife Jenna and 3 kids are living in a house on the south shore of Clary Lake.

October 2022

I have archived the October 2022 Water Level Chart (at left). For the third month in a row we received more than the monthly average amount of rain, 1.6 inches more in fact. We’re now 2.72 inches ahead of the game having received 38.76 inches of rain to date. May, June, and July were the only months this year we’ve fallen short of the monthly average. It’s no surprise with all the rain that the lake level which had been below normal for much of the summer is back where it belongs this time of year, maybe even a little higher than usual. We’ll be drawing the lake level down as winter approaches.

The real news for October (as it was in September too) is the ongoing algae bloom. Back in September I was saying it was the “worst since 2013” but it has hung on all of October and it looks like it’s going to drag on into November as well, making this by far the worst and longest duration algae bloom event I can remember, and everyone I’ve talked to about it agrees. DEP is keeping an eye on it. I know I’m not alone in being concerned for our lake’s health and unhappy about the unpleasant green color of our water in late summer and fall and the green scum that has been washing up on our shores for the past two months.

So why did it bloom this year? I think the chart at left pretty much tells the story, and there is no need to get all technical about it: Lots of winter and early spring inflows washed Phosphorus into the lake. This was followed by 4 months of hot dry weather during which there were almost no lake outflows. Nonetheless from around the 1st of May until late August, the lake level fell steadily, losing 1.5 feet of water; this water loss represented a volume loss of almost 15% which is not insignificant. Virtually all the water loss was due to evaporation which concentrated the nutrients that algae feed on, most importantly, Phoshorus. While the ingredients for a bloom were there by the end of August, how the bloom has managed to hang on this long is still mystery to me as I thought it would have burned itself out after a few weeks. I’ll continue my analysis and post more about it at another time.

September 2022

I have archived the September 2022 Water Level Chart (at left). For the second month in a row we received a little more than the monthly average amount of rain though it wasn’t until the month was a little more than halfway over that the heavier rains finally arrived. This late influx of water allowed us to bring the lake up to a more reasonable level for the time of year We ended up receiving 4.08 inches of rain (normal is 3.84 inches). We’re now 1.14 inches ahead of normal for this date. Had the rain deficit we saw at the beginning of the month continued, we’d have ended the month with the lake level down around -2 feet. Instead, we’re more or less where we should be as we head into fall. We spent much of the summer with a lake level considerably lower than in the previous 3 years. We’re now more or less back to normal. This has allowed us to resume our dam management activities and on the 22nd we removed 4 stop logs in preparation for the winter drawdown. Continue reading →