Ice On The Pond

     This morning the retention pond was frozen over.  I guess if you weren't told, you would assume that this was the normal look of the water surface.  Trust me, it's frozen.  The pond is not small.  I would estimate that it is 200 yards by 75 yards and is deep enough to support enough fish for the neighborhood kids to go after.  It would have been nice to see an ibis or other water fowl standing on the ice, but none would accommodate me, so I guess you'll just have to trust me when I say,"That's ice." 
     Snow is particularly rare here, although we did have a Valentine's Day storm this year (see Cindy's Christmas card).  Normally when the weather gets cold enough to snow here, it is because we are under the influence of an arctic high pressure.  Those conditions are accompanied by clear skies, nighttime radiational cooling and very low, lip-cracking humidity and therefore no snow.
     This is supposed to be the end of the cold spell, but winter hasn't even started yet so we'll see frost again, but probably not in the teens like the past two nights.  We kept water trickling to preclude frozen pipes.