The record late date for Nenana, Alaska ice breakup is May 20 at 11:41 am, which occurred in 1964. That record will be broken in less than five hours, unless Homer gets his axe out.
Disrupting the Borg is expensive and time consuming!
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May 2013 is heading to become one of the top five coldest Mays since records began in 1901.
May 1962 is currently the coldest on record with an average temperature of 6.4 Celsius. This month so far, the average temperature is 6.8 Celsius.
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2013/05/its_been_a_cold_spring_and_it.php
Surely Big Oil is behind this. They must have paid the ice untold millions.
Maybe the CO2 is holding that tripod up?
Alaska is now on DST will this need to go till 12:41 to equal the record or was Alaska on DST back in ’64?
Traitor In Chief, I think you may be partially correct. Except big oil didn’t pay the ice. Look closely. See the huge cables? Yep, that’s right, they are partially holding it up. And look at the base. You can barely see them, but there are floatation devices under the structure. Looking at the ice, itself… clearly photoshoped. I have it on good authority that the Koch brothers are behind this! I think an IRS investigation is in order.
If a polar bear goes out on the ice and knocks the tripod over, what will that mean?
It’d mean that it’s due to climate change because the polar bear had to go to the river ice since all the sea ice is gone this year.
-Scott
Polar bears don’t need ice – they just need something to eat. They find humans quite tasty.
Well, if a human is NOT there to hear any noise, there will be noise? NO!!! = AGW
Can we assume that the polar bear would hear the noise? NO!!! Also = AGW
It also just might mean that the tripod did NOT make any noise when the bear knocked it over. Also = AGW
I guess that I can be a climate scientist, eh! Anything and everything shows that AGW exists.
I’m surprised Homer isn’t out there ice fishing with dynamite…
A new record has been set!
We do not yet know by how much but the pole is still standing.
I think that’s in another 12 minutes. The record 5/20 11:41 time was Alaska Standard Time. The website clock shows AKDT.
1964 was a leap year.
We are still a day short.
Hey Ivan,
There have been about 12 leap years since 1964 adding 12 days to the calendar.
Don’t you want to add all those extra days too ?
By your thinking that would move the record to June 1st.
Leap years are added to make sure that May 20th stays close to that location in the Earth’s orbit. Forget about adding another day, leap year corrects that imperfection.
Hey kbray,
Do the maths.
20 May 1964 = day 141
20 May 2013 = day 140
141 minus 140 = 1 day short.
The record keeping is based on date, not the day of the year. So it should be a new record.
Ivan: Calculate according to the solar equinox. See:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/19/nenana-ice-classic-closing-in-on-all-time-record-latest-ice-out/#comment-1309931
Exactly, I was thinking the same thing when people started being up the leap year thing. Calculation relative to equinox is the number 1 metric for sure and, though I didn’t calculate the number myself, actually puts this year at a disadvantage by about three hours. Considering that the tripod is still standing, it’s a very healthy record at this point.
Honestly, I’m surprised. The 1964 record looked to me to be a ~3-sigma effect and therefore I was figuring we had little chance to break it.
-Scott
Hey Ivan,
January 1, 1964 was already off by 1 day.
That’s why they add a day.
Start your count on January 2, 1964 to allow for the date drift.
That gives you 140 days.
Now we’re even.
The pole is down…
“…A Kenai couple has the only winning ticket in this year’s Nenana Ice Classic.
The ice went out at 3:41 p.m. in Nenana on Monday and there was only one winning ticket holder in what was the latest breakup on record in the 97-year-old Nenana Ice Classic.
The official winning time was 2:41 p.m. Alaska Standard Time because the contest uses standard, not daylight, time to determine the winner(s)…”
Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2013/05/20/2909357/kenai-couple-wins-nenana-ice-classic.html#storylink=cpy