A Cold Day on Lewis Bay

 The prolonged cold wave that has enveloped the Cape for several days has finally managed to freeze over Lewis Bay.

The photo shows 16 year old Yevgeniy Kuznetsov, a Russian foreign exchange student from Krasnoyarsk, Siberia that was visiting the Cape this weekend. He lives with his host family off Cape. Yevgeniy (Russian for Eugene) said he enjoys seeing the frozen scene. “It is one of the few times he has seen ice since he arrived in the U.S. last summer”.

Meanwhile, back in his home town in Russia it is also unusually warm this winter. The weather forecast in his home town of Krasnoyarsk called for a high of +24F degrees and a low of -4F today. But by Tuesday, the temperature was going to drop to a balmy (for Siberia) -13F. Yevgeniy says normal temperatures for this time of year in his city are a high of -16F and a low of -40.

Fortunately, we are not likely to see Siberia like temperatures in Hyannis any time soon. At this point there is no immediate problem for ferries navigating the Hyannis channel on their trips to and from Nantucket. But, extended cold periods in years past have occasionally made Lewis Bay impassible for ship traffic and forced the Steamship Authority to move its Nantucket departures from Hyannis to Woods Hole which seldom ever freezes due to its strong currents.

Readers are advised to always use extreme caution and common sense when venturing out on ice on lakes and ponds.  Salt water ice is much more dangerous as it very likely to be unstable due to salinity, breakage caused by the rise and fall of tides and currents.

Photo Credit: Serhiy Hryva