suns along the Mohawk

 update (noon, Saturday, Jan. 13): The ice cover along the Stockade broke about 10:30 am Saturday, and our coverage can be found at the posting “Saturday ice jamming on the Mohawk.”

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above: Mohawk River along the Schenectady Stockade, Jan. 11, 2018

below: west view from Esplanade, Jan. 12, 2018, 5:17 pm

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above: 4 Washington Ave, raised above the floodline

Over the past couple of days, there has been extensive media coverage of potential ice jamming and resultant flooding along the Stockade stretch of the Mohawk, due to a two-day warming spell (Thursday and today, Friday, Jan. 12) after our long deep-freeze, and heavy rains forecasted for Friday and Saturday.  On Thursday and Friday evenings, there were tv crews at Riverside Park, and web and hardcopy stories in the Daily Gazette and Times Union.

 This morning (Friday), WNYT NewsChannel 13’s Early Today, the #1 morning news show in the Capital District, had a crew broadcasting from Riverside Park from 5 AM to 7 AM, with veteran reporter John Craig stationed at the end of N. Ferry Street, on the Riverside Park esplanade; and, reporter Abigail Bleck arrived while I was there. [see images to the right and below] Click to see a video clip with John and Stockade Association Vice President Colleen Macaulay.

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above: [L] a view of Asa Steckel and Subrina Dhammi in the Ch. 13 studio introducing John Craig; and [R] John Craig interviewing Colleen Macaulay . .

I stopped by the esplanade about 6:45 am and enjoyed chatting with the Ch. 13 crew. The consensus seemed to be that there will not be flooding along the Mohawk over the next few days. Should there be any impending or developing flood or ice jam situations over the weekend, I will cover the situation and post photos here.

• If you really need to see Stockade ice jams, go to our posting from April 2014 to see icy images from 2009 to 2014, which has a photo-spread of my book Jamming on the Mohawk.
•  As of 8 AM Friday, January 12, 2018, the National Weather Service is predicting that the Mohawk at Schenectady [Freeman’s Bridge, actually] will not rise to the 220′ flood stage level over the weekend. There is, of course, a disclaimer that the predictions do not take into account ice.

Evening update, Friday, January 12, 2018: The National Weather Service [NWS] continues to predict the Mohawk cresting at Schenectady, a few feet below flood level, Saturday afternoon, and then receding.

NWS measures the Schenectady level of the Mohawk River from Freeman’s Bridge. The side-by-side images below let you compare the Stockade water level with the Freeman’s Bridge chart, at approximately the same time (click on it for a larger version):