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The Daily Doings of Steph

I’ll bet you all were worried - how can it be April without a Westchester Lagoon Ice Classic??!!!! However, we’ve had very cold Spring and as I type, we’re in the midst of a huge blizzard - 7 inches of snow on the ground and the storm total is predicted at 12 inches. Pretty impressive for April 25th!

Predicting ice out is going to be a challenge. But, as in years past, it’s time to break out the weather almanac, consult weather service predictions, check your horiscope, try to figure out if this is an El Nino or a La Nina year, read the tea leaves, ponder the state of the pussy willows, count the number of returning geese and assess the impact of global warming - all in an attempt to be the winner of this year’s Ice Classic!!!!!

I have no clue as to when the ice will go out. This time last week, there was still a foot of snow on top of the ice. It didn’t look as if it could possibly go out until June 1st. However, by yesterday, we’d had three days of 60 degree weather, all of the snow was gone and the ice was a bit rotten around the edges. But, after today’s blizzard, who knows????

The rules (such as they are) are listed below. You’ve got a little bit of time to get your guess in, but don’t wait too long. That ice could go out and leave you behind!

Rules:

1. The participant must guess the date the ice goes out of the Lagoon.
2. Each participant gets only one guess.
3. Date for entries closes at 11:59 PM ADT on April 30th, 2007.
4. A guess consists of just a date - no time. I refuse to install a timing tripod on the Lagoon.
5. I will check the ice several times each day.
6. ALL the ice must go out. It sometimes goes out in chunks - but chunks don’t count.
7. Participants must supply their e-mail address. This is so I can contact you if you win.
8. If more than one person guesses the winning date, each winner will get a full prize - up to 4 winners. If there are more than 4 winners, the winning 4 will be selected based upon earliest entry into the contest.
9. All judge’s decisions are final and I (Steph) am the judge.
10. Ah - the prize. It’s a good one - a $25 gift certificate to Amazon.

Voting:

1. Voting will be done through the comments feature.
2. The voting comments button is at the bottom of this post.
3. Click on the comments button and submit your vote.
4. The cool thing is that everyone will be able to see everyone else’s vote - hopefully there will be a lot of them.

Notes and Hints:

1. In 2007, the went out on May 2nd. We had two co-winners: Rick and Elliott.
2. In 2006, the ice went out on over a two day period: May 3rd and May 4th. Our winners were Gordon, Da Ski Boy, BJ, and Sean!
3. In 2005, the ice went out on April 29th and the winning prognosticator was Cory Gish.
4. In 2004, the ice went out on May 4th a day on which we set a record high temperature of 66 degrees. The 2004 winners were Dr. L., and Phil.
5. In 2003, the ice went out very very early, April 26th The 2003 winners were Brad and Phil.
6. In 2002, the ice went out quite late: May 10th and the winners were Erin and Brad.
7. I saw a parasailor-skier out on the Lagoon last week on April 18th.
8. The section of Chester Creek just East of Spenard Road is partially open. For you non-Anchorage-ites, Chester Creek feeds into the Lagoon.
9. If I got to vote, I’d vote for May 5th - 10 days from today.

So vote away.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 25th, 2008 at 3:12 pm and is filed under Alaska. You can follow responses via my RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your site.