Likelihood of icebreaking this year is diminishing
Captain Jeff Lill of the JC Widener, the icebreaking vessel that serves Annapolis harbor, remembers when ice formed in the Annapolis area every winter.
“Before the 1990s it seemed as if every year you could count on icebreaking, but now each year there seems to be less and less,” he says. “Last year we only broke ice one day, and the last time we had significant ice was in 2018.”
Captain Lill has worked aboard the 72-foot Widener for 28 years. Most of the year the vessel is based in Cambridge, MD, for buoy tending, but for icebreaking it moves to Annapolis. The crew of four is responsible for keeping the waterways clear in Anne Arundel County, including the Magothy, Severn, and West Rivers, and the creeks off of them. Fishing Creek gets cleared for the Coast Guard boats stationed there.
According to Lill, ice most often forms in this area during early January. This year, at the time of our interview in mid-January we hadn’t seen ice of any significance, and by the time of our website posting in mid-February, the forecast for the next few weeks showed high temperatures in the 40- to 50-degree range.
Lill said, “Right now the 14-day forecast shows water temperatures won’t be conducive to ice before February, but you never know. We saw a big exception to the usual trend in 2014. That year we didn’t have ice until mid-February, and we were breaking ice until mid-March, which was very unusual. That may have been the only time I’ve seen ice here in March.”
Lill says he likes to see a little ice. “A little bit of ice cleans the bottom of the boat—almost like getting a haul out for a power wash and scrap,” he says. “It gives the boat a clean bottom and a nice, clean prop. That’s one of the benefits of icebreaking!”
