Almost surrounded
Canadian Coast Guard says it’s unusual for P.E.I. to have as much ice around it at this time of year
With the recent frigid temperatures it should come as no surprise that P.E.I. is practically surrounded by ice.
Trevor Hodgson, superintendent of ice operations for the Canadian Coast Guard’s Ice Atlantic office, said ice covers the north, south and west sides of the province.
“Basically, the thicker ice is developing down off Charlottetown in the Northumberland Strait,’’ Hodgson said Wednesday.
“Pretty much east of the Confederation Bridge we’re seeing the thicker grey, white ice up to about 30 centimetres thick.’’
Hodgson said it is unusual to see so much ice lining the north side of the province. “Looking at our normal projections here, usually (in the) Northumberland Strait we’ll see a bit of ice fill in there.
The stuff you’re seeing on the north side is spilling out of the Northumberland Strait. It’s sort of unusual for this time of year . . . we’d expect that to be ice free.’’
Hodgson suggested this week’s major winter storm would hash most of the ice up and clear it away, but added it won’t take long for the ice to return.
“All that heat is out of the water column and it’s all cold water now because it’s shallow water. It will be freezing back just as quickly as you saw it come this time.’’
As for the coast guard’s icebreaker, Henry Larsen, which docks in Charlottetown, Hodgson said it hasn’t been too busy.
“Pretty standard traffic. We’ve only had three taskings so far, (so) not a lot of movement in the area. It hasn’t put a lot of demand on our system yet.’’