In pairs and on their own, skaters slide around the Library Lawn Skate Rink, next to the Lawrence Public Library, 707 Vermont St., on Saturday, Dec. 26. The rink features a simulated-ice surface and rents skates.

On Nov. 27, the day the outdoor city ice skating rink opened for the season, the National Weather Service issued a freezing rain advisory, and rain and sleet fell on Lawrence.

It was a bad opening weekend for the rink, said Lawrence Parks and Recreation operations manager Jimmy Gibbs. And it didn’t get much better.

Based on city estimates, the skate rink has seen not quite one-third of the skaters it had by this time last year.

“I don’t have all of the numbers in, but we are down, and we know that,” Gibbs said. “We’ve had a little more extreme weather days than we’ve had in the past, but people are still coming.”

The Hurla family of Eudora skates on Lawrence's synthetic ice rink on Dec. 24, 2015. From left to right: Langston, 3; mom Shanda; Parker, 10; Grant, 5; Lincoln, 7; and dad Joe.

It’s the second season the skate rink — located at the Lawrence Public Library, 707 Vermont St. — has been in operation. The City Commission voted 3-2 to approve the $80,000 purchase of the artificial ice rink in September 2014.

As of Jan. 8 last year, Parks and Recreation reported that 7,452 skates had been rented. The skates rent for $3 a pair, so the city brought in about $22,356 from the rentals. Skaters are not allowed to use their own skates on the synthetic ice.

So far this season, there have been just more than 2,300 skaters, said Mark Hecker, assistant director of Parks and Recreation, in an email Thursday. At $3 each, that means the city has brought in approximately $6,900.

Hecker and Gibbs blamed the decrease on bad weather over several weekends.

“We believe our attendance reduction this year is mostly weather related,” Hecker said in an email. “If you recall, our opening weekend (weekend after Thanksgiving) was terrible weather… the downtown lighting ceremony was cancelled… Santa didn’t come to Weavers. If you think about it, we have only been open six weekends, and if we lose five or six of those days due to weather, that creates an automatic reduction.”

Parks and Recreation is currently working on a report about the skate rink that will go to the City Commission, Hecker said.

The department is hoping the rink will see an uptick in attendance before then.

“We are hoping for a few nice weekends in January to rebound the numbers,” he said.

On Wednesday, the city announced the rink would be open only Fridays through Sunday through Jan. 31. Last year, the rink remained open through Feb. 15.

The new hours are: 3 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Fridays, 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturdays and 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Sundays.

Hecker said the cut in days is because children are going back to school.

The busiest period for the rink last season was its first three weeks of operation, Gibbs said.

By about this time last year, some Lawrence residents had criticized the purchase , saying the synthetic ice — made of slick plastic material — was a difficult surface on which to glide.

Gibbs said it was still a “very fun thing” for families, especially children, the rink’s biggest demographic.

“It’s not ice, but I fall down on it just like I do ice,” he said. “It’s kind of fun.”

Hecker did not say when a report about the skate rink would go to city commissioners, but that he would get the information together as the end of the season approaches.