I’m from Michigan, and I never thought that I’d be saying this, but damn it, I MISS THE SNOW!!!

New Englanders have a lot of names for bad ice: They call it “rotten ice” if it’s weak like decaying wood, “crispy ice” if it crackles beneath their boots, and “candle ice” if, as it thaws, it starts to show opaque streaks that look like candles on their sides.

Now that January — usually full of deep-freezing, ice-making days — has passed by mild and rainy, anybody who looks hard enough could probably find all three kinds of the bad stuff here on massive Lake Winnipesaukee.

Plus, a fair amount of the worst ice of all: open water.

“It’s very, very, very unusual,” said Patrick Nealon, a fishing guide, looking out at the lake’s Meredith Bay last week.
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That’s the way it is now all over northern New England, where ice — thick, glacial-blue sheets of it — is usually a reliable and celebrated part of winter life. When the weather turns frigid, it’s like the ground gets bigger here, with such activities as camping, stock-car racing and airplane landings happening out on the region’s frozen lakes.

Not this year. The ice that everybody’s counting on hasn’t appeared.
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And even where there is ice, locals say, it’s often too weak to support a person, much less a pickup truck or the fully equipped “bobhouses” that ice fishermen spend their time in.

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