
Chesapeake Bay Ice Revisited: 1977 Freeze Echoes Today
NASA’s Earth Observatory recalls a historic Chesapeake Bay freeze captured by Landsat-1 in February 1977, when ice covered about 85% of the bay with notable thickness, and compares it to the 2025–2026 season’s roughly 38% coverage. The older images showed thick ice and fragmented areas that affected infrastructure and shellfish, while today’s conditions enable rare winter activities like ice boating and continue to challenge watermen and harbor facilities. The piece situates today’s freeze in the context of the region’s long record of extreme cold and ice conditions.








