Summer Heat in Spring!

Although this year started off so cold, it sure turned a corner quickly! It seems like we went from daily highs in the 40's to temperatures in the 80's in a blink of an eye. 

Long Island Sound is still chilly but that's not stopping people from getting the boats out and enjoying the comfortable temperatures. 

As I sat enjoying an ice coffee in the 80 degree temperatures, I watched as boats left the Milford Harbor. It really is starting to look like summer. Even the trees in the background have leafed out pretty quick in the last few weeks! 

Sea Ice in Long Island Sound During the Coldest Month on Record!

Now that it's March, we can officially declare the month of February 2015 as the coldest month on record in Bridgeport, Connecticut with an average temperature of 19.9 degrees (F)!  Records go back to 1948. 

Climatologically, January is the coldest month of the year. So it is impressive to have the coldest month on record now be in February! 

The NWS reports the highest temperature recorded at Bridgeport in the month of February 2015 was 37 degrees and the lowest was -2 degrees. The month saw 21.5 inches of snow fall with an average snow depth of 11 inches throughout the month (that's a far cry from what Boston saw!) 

I've shared some of the pictures of a frozen Long Island Sound in this post and this post but here are some more photos I haven't shared yet! 

Below is a picture of the American flag at Anchor Beach in Milford, CT. Notice all the sea ice and slush floating in front and around the rock that sticks out into the water. 

Since the cold was so prolonged, every tide cycle added more ice to the rocks along the shore. 

Frozen steps to the beach! The bottom few steps of this staircase that have weathered both Irene and Sandy have accumulated ice during high tides during the month. 

Another stair case to the beach frozen from high water at high tide. Pretty impressive that not even the sun could melt this ice! 

These rocks along the beach have been incased in sea ice, formed at different levels depending on the height of the tide. The combination of ice, tide and rocks made for some very cool patterns. 

Long Island Sound or the Arctic? Sea Ice Forming Along Coast

The arctic outbreak continues here in the Northeast, everyday inching closer to being the coldest month on record (that's the coldest month in about 100 years!) for the Connecticut coastline. This February 2015 Arctic Outbreak is certainly one to remember. Every day I go to the beach and the ice just gets thicker and thicker, something I have never personally seen.  Usually winters along the Connecticut coast are a battle zone for the rain/snow line, this year that battlefield is frozen over!  

Once again, here is the flag at Anchor Beach in Milford, Connecticut. Notice the thin layer of ice that surrounds the rock as well as the rest of the water within the photo. 

Here's another view of the flag, along with the frozen over Long Island Sound! Incredible! 

Looking out over Long Island Sound towards Long Island and ice covers the water out or at least 300 yards! 

Another picture looking towards the West Haven, CT coastline from Milford. Ice everywhere!  

Another view from Milford looking towards Long Island, over the extensive ice sheet forming on Long Island Sound. 

To go along with my photos of Long Island Sound Sea Ice, check out these MODIS Satellite images and check out the ice forming on Long Island Sound and up near Cape Cod. 

Now here's an impressive MODIS Satellite image! Delaware Bay is full of ice and so is the Chesapeake Bay! Anymore ice and it will look like the film "The Day After Tomorrow" 

Long Island Sound Freezing Up! Connecticut Frozen Shore!

I'm in complete geek out mode this morning as temperatures once again drop down to zero degrees. February has the potential to be the coldest February on record for many in the Northeast and it certainly is showing! The official temperature of Long Island Sound is 32 degrees and harbors are even colder. In fact it is so cold, ice has begun to form in the salty waters of Long Island Sound! 

I braved the extreme cold this morning to take some photographs of the frozen shoreline. Below are the photos I took with my phone, I have even more on my DSLR camera. 

The first photo is of Anchor Beach in Milford, CT. Notice the accumulated ice on all the rocks and all the ice in the water! Some ice even looked like pancake ice! 

Here's one of those rocks covered in thick ice. Remember this is frozen salt water!! 

Milford Harbor is completely frozen over! But it sure looks pretty! 

Another view of the frozen harbor, the ice to the left is buckled due to flowing water from a small river that feeds into the harbor. 

The river that flows through downtown Milford and into the Harbor. 

Milford's famous Charles Island looks pretty cold from the shore of Gulf Beach! Look at all that ice around the shore! 

A beach day at Gulf Beach? Maybe not, those are large chunks of ice floating in slushy salt water along the beach! 

Finally, a satellite view of Long Island Sound this morning, February 20, 2015. If you look closely at the northern edge of Long Island Sound, you will see a thin line of white, that's all the ice on Long Island sound and some of it was captured on my camera this morning! 

Impressive Winter Scenes From Space! MODIS Satellite Images

The fun thing about getting pictures from space is getting to see the impacts of weather on a large scale. These high resolution images below were taken by the MODIS Satellite and it captures some pretty cool and cold phenomena happening in the northeast United States! 

This first image is of southern New England, specifically Long Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Cape Cod and of course Long Island Sound. It's been labeled with a few different cool features. This includes ice on Long Island Sound, an iced over Connecticut river, the scar from the Springfield, MA tornado and more ice in Buzzard's Bay on the South end of Cape Cod. 

And in case you didn't realize, the ground is covered in white due to snow cover! All of New England has had snow on the ground for weeks now! 

The next image is of Lake Ontario, with Canada to the north (top of the image) and upstate New York to the south (bottom of the image). When this image was taken on February 16, 2015 the lake was only partially frozen, which means it's still open to lake effect snows!

Here's another close up view of the Cape Cod area, which is covered in snow! Also check out the ice in the bays! Pretty impressive! 

The image below is of the Finger Lakes area of upstate New York. Notice, only two of the lakes are left unfrozen. Those lakes are  Cayuga Lake and Seneca Lake, which are the two deepest lakes in the United States. Since they are a lot deeper than the other lakes, relatively warmer water is able to mix to the surface, keeping the surface from forming ice. 

Sound Effect Snow? 12-11-14

After the surprise Ocean Effect Snow in New Jersey the other day and talking about how unusual it was, another unusual event happened today! This time it was sound effect snow from Long Island sound. 

As this week's nor'easter slowed down and te upper level low caught up to it, we have seen the cold air and moisture wrap all the way around the storm. Even to one point where it was raining in Maine but snowing ins Philadelphia!!!! Crazy! 

As this storm has sat and spun over us, the winds have shifted from the north east to the west and even south west. Usually this wind direction brigs warmer and drier air but being stuck under the trough of low pressure, with all layers of the atmosphere being close to or bellow freezing, there's been NO warming. 

With this south west wind, cold air and relatively warm Long Island Sound, a very faint snow band formed over the sound north into Massachusetts. The wind direction was perfectly aligned with the length of Long Island sound, creating enough fetch and warm water to form the snow showers and flurries. 

I've circled the sound effect snow band on the radar image below. It's faint compared to the ocean effect snow from earlier this week and nothing compared to the Buffalo lake effect storm from November 2014 but it's still very interesting!

It's been a while!

It been a while since I updated this blog so I figured I would update with a photo I took of Charles Island a few weeks ago.  

It was an unusually warm day for November so of course there wa fog.  

The picture is looking out from the beach at the island, which is shrouded in the must of low forming clouds, aka fog.  

Icy Long Island Sound 1/25/13

After a week of below freezing temps here along the CT shoreline, I braved the cold on Friday morning to venture down the beach and take some photos.  The reason why I wanted to get down to the beach was because the water was getting so cold, ice was forming in spots.  Now as most of you probably know, it's very hard for salt water to freeze, and Long Island Sound is salt water.  Although not too unusual it was fun to see the ice along the shoreline.  I took tons of pictures and even made a slideshow for the local weather site WxEdge.com, which I'm a contributor to.  The only part that wasn't fun was the near frostbite i received on my fingers!! It took about 20 mins to get my hands back to normal after only being outside for 15-20 mins at the most!

Here's my slideshow for WxEdge:  

Icy Shores of...Long Island Sound 

and here are two photos I took with my phone and filtered via Instagram: 

Winter at the beach! 1/2/13

Hurricane Sandy Point Beach

These photos were taken at Point Beach in Milford, CT where just 14 months to the day earlier was hit hard by Tropical Storm Irene. The damage and storm surge flooding was very similar to Irene. These photos were taken the morning after Sandy at low tide. Notice the boarded up homes along the coast and the electronics sitting on rocks next to the water!

Foggy Fall Day 10/4/12

Stormy day at the beach 9/18/12

More Irene Storm Surge

Storm surge from Irene