The weather will take on a very wintery touch next week. It will probably freeze every night, with cold peaks on Tuesday and Wednesday. Many natural ice rinks are ready to open, but the weather must behave as the weather models now show.
The maximum temperature will be around freezing point for the next few days. Every night it will freeze, only next night it’s a bit hard to say because of the clouds. “There is then quite a lot of clouds, which causes the freezing point to rise a bit,” says Johnny Willemse of Weerplaza. “But when it clears up at night, the freezing point drops to -5.” Especially in the coastal provinces there is a chance of some winter precipitation next week, although that will probably not produce real white pictures. “It will be wet snow.” There is also a chance of slipperiness in the second half of the week, but Willemse does not expect dense fog as we saw last week.
There will be moderate frost on Monday and Tuesday night, which means a temperature between -5 and -10 degrees. “A few days of moderate frost is good enough for the opening of most natural ice rinks.” The meteorologist warns that this is not about puddles of open water. For that it has to freeze a lot longer to prevent you from standing ‘up to your knees in water’.
Natural ice rinks are eager
The ice rink in Doorn is going well this week anyway to attempt. If it freezes hard enough, around four degrees minimum, the track will open at 08:00 on Monday morning. “We are going to try,” said ice master Theo Schippers. “We keep an eye on all weather apps. Sometimes you also have to be lucky.”
Natural ice rink Vlietland in South Holland takes a more gloomy view. They already hoped for a frozen track today, but that is disappointing. “There is not an ounce of ice now,” says rink secretary Aad van Linden. Because the course is close to the coast, it depends on the wind. If it comes from the sea, you often have to deal with warm air. “The weather is currently extremely unreliable in terms of forecasts, so we are going to look at it here on a daily basis.” In any case, it won’t be the job. “He is ready for it.”
It opened three weeks ago skating rink in Winterswijk a while. Skaters could then use the track for four hours, after which it started to thaw.
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