Normally during the period from 1 October to 1 February the effects 

 of onshore and offshore winds will approximately neutrahze each other. 

 Actually, however, during this same period the effect of the onshore winds 

 were approximately five to six times as great as the effect of the offshore 

 winds. This was largely due to an extremely large anomaly during the 

 month of December. That is, the pressure gradients which give rise to 

 onshore winds were six to seven times larger than normal during Decem- 

 ber. During February and March the winds are normally onshore. 

 Actually, however, the pressure gradients indicated an offshore effect 

 approximately twice as great as the normal onshore effect. It is possible 

 that during December the onshore winds rafted the ice to such an extent 

 that the westward displacement of the eastern limits of the sea ice along 

 the Labrador coast characterized the entire season notwithstanding the 

 preponderance of offshore winds during February and March. Normally 

 the Strait of Belle Isle can be navigated by unreinforced vessels by the 

 last week in June. In 1948 the Belle Isle Radio reported the first suc- 

 cessful vessel navigation of the strait on 7 June, indicating an early 

 northward recession of the field ice. 



There is no information available upon which to base a reconstruction 

 of the progress of the limits of the storis around Cape Farewell, north- 

 ward along the southwestern coast of Greenland and its subsequent 

 recession. What little information is available, however, seems to in- 

 dicate an earlier than normal recession of the storis limits. A United 

 States Navy plane enroute from Goose Bay, Labrador, to Narsarssuak, 

 Greenland, late in June, reported sighting no storis off Simiutak Island. 

 Visibility, however, was limited to a narrow strip along their course line. 

 Normally storis is present in this area until late in July or early in August 

 indicating the possibility of an earher than normal recession of the storis 

 limits. It is possible, however, that the storis was present further to the 

 north and was not sighted because of the limited visibility. The USCGC 

 Evergreen, while conducting the post-season oceanographic survey, ran 

 a line of oceanographic stations from South Wolf Island, Labrador, to 

 Cape Farewell and found the outer limits of the storis about 11 miles off 

 Cape Farewell on the 16th of July. Normally Cape Farewell is not free 

 of storis until early August. While approaching Cape Farewell on the 

 15th of July, the Evergreen encountered an easterly gale with winds up to 

 65 knots. In addition on the 20th of July, the Evergreen, while approach- 

 ing Narsarssuak from the west, enountered storis off Brede Fjord. It is 

 possible that additional storis was moved northwestward around Cape 

 Farewell by the easterly gale of the 15th, and that this additional storis 

 was encountered by the Evergreen off Brede Fjord on the 20th. 



Figure 8 in the section of this Bulletin dealing with the iceberg census 

 of Baffin Bay and Davis Strait shows the distribution of the west ice in 

 Baffin Bay and Davis Strait during the later part of July. The total 

 amount of west i{;e was considerably less than usual for this time of the 

 year. In addition, the eastern, northern, and southern limits were dis- 



14 



