ICE CONDITIONS NORTH Of 50" N. 



The Strait of Belle Isle and the southern Labrador coast was 

 reported encumbered by heavy field ice early in January and at 

 intervals through the month. On 22 January a ship reported 

 passing through large patches of broken field ice more than 150 

 miles off Domino Point, Labrador. This was one of the earliest in- 

 dications of the unusually easterly distribution of ice which later 

 characterized the 1946 season farther south. It seems probable 

 that winter winds in the Labrador sector had a considerable off- 

 shore component which moved the field ice farther seaward. This 

 not only tended to move off shore the bergs frozen in the field ice 

 but also hampered such free bergs as were outside the field ice 

 from drifting toward the coast. Further confirmation is contained 

 in the report of a plane which, on a flight between Goose Bay and 

 southern Greenland, noted on 6 March that of the 135-mile belt 

 of field ice off the Labrador coast the inner 20 miles was lighter 

 and apparently new ice covering a previous shore lead. Further 

 aerial observation from the 9th through the 12th of March showed 

 that along the entire Labrador coast the movement of the field ice 

 was seaward, opening a 20- to 30-mile shore lead and being further 

 indicated by a ragged offshore edge. 



The small number of reports received of ice conditions in northern 

 waters does not permit tracing the progress of the advancing sea- 

 son with a satisfactory degree of continuity. The storis season in 

 southwestern Greenland was somewhat heavier than normal al- 

 though it was a little late in beginning. The storis reached Prince 

 Christian Sound about the middle of January, rounded Cape Fare- 

 well near the end of January and reached a point off Lichtenau on 

 6 February. By early March it reached Cape Thorvaldsen and on 

 6 March it closed the entrances of the fjords opening into the 

 Julianehaab bight. The end of the storis season was about normal 

 as to date, the southwest coast clearing in July. 



SUMMARY 



The outstanding feature of the 1946 season was the abnormally 

 easterly distribution of the bergs. Ordinarily the bergs which drift 

 south of the 48th parallel follow the Labrador Current which di- 

 vides, just north of the Grand Banks, into two branches. The 

 western, and usually less important branch flows southward along 

 the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland, and the major eastern 

 branch flows southward along the eastern edge of the Grand Banks. 

 The ratio between the strengths of these two branches fluctuates 

 from year to year and these fluctuations are usually mirrored in the 

 proportion of bergs following the two branches. During 1946 

 only two bergs are known to have followed the western branch 

 and both of these were well off shore. It is not considered that 



130 



