2016 Pond Hockey Tournament cancelled

PRESS RELEASE:

This news was handed down today from our Umbrella organization at the Chamber of Commerce.

Due to no ice, we will be using our alternate date of February 21st for the Ice Tee Golf Tournament.  There is still a very good possibility that there will be no ice or unsafe ice for the alternate date.  We will make a final decision by Monday, February 8th.  We do consult with the National Weather Service in Binghamton, NY for long range weather and temperature forecasts. Some area ponds are starting to get ice, however it will be back up in the 40’s by the weekend.  There have been 2 years out of the last 5 that we haven’t had safe ice on the lake for January or February.  It looks like this could be another one of those years. 

Debbie Gillette

Executive Director

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We have also been looking at NOAA and a few other Weather services and there is definitely no Cold-Snap in sight. The Temperatures are running above Average, and my best estimate would be; it’s just not enough sustained Cold weather to accumulate a minimum required of 9 inches of ice on the big lake.
This basically sums it all up:
STRONG EL NINO CONDITIONS PERSIST ACROSS THE EQUATORIAL PACIFIC OCEAN WHICH IS EVIDENT IN BOTH OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC DATA. THE ONGOING EL NINO IS LIKELY AT ITS PEAK, WITH A TRANSITION TO ENSO-NEUTRAL EXPECTED DURING THE LATE SPRING OR EARLY SUMMER 2016. ODDS OF LA NINA DEVELOPING BY NEXT WINTER ARE ELEVATED COMPARED TO LAST MONTH.
We could follow the lead of the Chamber and once again, waiting it out for another month. However our Tournament Committee feels there would not be enough time and too much risk in delivering a quality product. It is with regret that we must cancel our plans for this year. The NOAA Forecast and Trends shows us that next year is 80% La Nina. So, we will remain optimistic that Wally Ice Fest will be held on a frozen solid Lake Wallenpaupack in 2017.

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