The carefully researched random thoughts of Ryan Long

“The Nenana Ice Classic” April 5, 2008

April 5th was the last day to guess when the ice will go out for the year 2008. This is the time of year when everyone checks the thickness of the ice in Nenana, which is now 45 inches thick, to find out how much longer it will be before the ice starts moving the tripod set up on the Tanana river. Then when that moment comes the bells, whistles and sirens go off and the celebration begins.

Usually there is more than just one winner in the Ice Classic, not just because of the likely hood of someone picking the same time but also because of ice pools. People will join into pools to blanket certain days or possibly weeks to increase their likely hood of winning.

There are several ways that came to mind when picking dates and times for the ice to go out. The first is using science to deduce an answer. You can check previous years where the ice was 45 inches thick to see when the tripod was finally tripped. You can gauge how warm the winter was and use it to pick your date. Of course then there is just random numbers and luck. How would you pick a time for the ice to break up?