Ice in Lower New York Bay

A view of Sandy Hook Bay from Mt. Mitchill in Atlantic Highlands, NJ

By Joe Reynolds
​New York Harbor Nature

No surprise, after two weeks of below freezing temperatures, much of Lower New York Bay has frozen over. An ice field of up to 15 inches thick formed from Highlands/Atlantic Highlands to the tip of the Sandy Hook peninsula and extending to Staten Island. It is the most extensive ice sheet along the southern shore of New York Harbor in many years. 

But with warmer weather predicted this week, much of the ice will slowly melt away. 

Yet, things could always be worse. The archives of The New York Times tell us that on February 14, 1901, there was an ice blockade in New York Harbor that put a temporary halt to shipping. The estuary was so ice clogged from shore to shore that "great ocean steamships, ferryboats, and the strongest as well as the weakest tugs, ocean-going tows, barges and floats" could not move. Winds were also wicked. A 66 mile an hour wind gust was recored at 4:00pm.