It’s over. I think. Friday and Saturday’s record-breaking Arctic blast has moved out to sea and we are experiencing a torrid temperature of 23 degrees (F) with wind gusts of 9 miles per hour from the west-southwest as I write at 7:15 this morning.
Although records are not kept on sea smoke, it appeared to me that we had a record-breaker in that department, as well; the blast produced the most dramatic sea smoke and freezing sea spray display that I’ve ever experienced.
Yesterday morning, when I went down to Naskeag Harbor to take the images here, the recorded ambient temperature was minus 12, with a wind chill of minus 37 and wind gusts of up to 39 miles per hour from the Northwest. The Harbor was other-worldly:
The sea smoke hid our fishing vessels and the freezing sea spray covered them and the shoreline area with ice. Sea ice also started forming in the shallower waters along the shore. Here you see the ice-encrusted fishing vessels Tarrfish (shown twice, once a closeup) and Dear Abbey in the Harbor:
On the way back, I stopped off at Amen Ridge and watched the sea smoke sweep across Blue Hill Bay up to Acadia National Park in the distance, with its Mt. Cadillac arising and unphased:
When I got home, the patch of sea ice forming near the shore of Great Cove had grown:
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on February 4, 2023.