Haven't seen any IRCA replies on this Mark, but
N7DF recently walked back his comments a bit
after seeing quite a few of the other 160m
contestants saying how poor conditions had been.

My own comments that you quoted were from Sunday 
morning, traditionally a time when contests on 
160m are winding down, and people throw in the 
towel if it doesn't look like they'll add any 
more contacts to what they've already 
made.  Saturday morning here was a bit better 
than Sunday, but still not anywhere up to what 
one might expect from geomagnetic conditions.
Nick
At 05:23 2019-01-29, Mark Connelly via IRCA wrote:
I wasn't active but I'm very curious as to what 
everyone else noted over the weekend based on the reports below.
Mark Connelly, WA1ION
South Yarmouth, MA
Exhibit A
<<
Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2019 16:03:56 +0000 (UTC)
From: N7DF <n7df@yahoo.com>
To: TopBand List <topband@contesting.com>
Subject: Topband: really good conditions
Unbelievable signals in CQ160 this weekend..many 
stations 40 over on my FT1000 and several TX and 
AZ signals pegged the meter at 60 over

PJ2T was 35 over most of the time
lost my receiving antennas to storms in December and had to use cage only
still have right wrist in cast so have to hunt and pounce only QLF but had fun
73 Larry
>>
Exhibit B
<<
From: Nick Hall-Patch <nhp@ieee.org>
To: Mailing list for the International Radio Club of America
    <irca@hard-core-dx.com>
Subject: [IRCA] TPÂ  27 Jan Victoria version.
This morning might take the title for the season's worst...
pretty darn good audio (all of it understandable 
by a native speaker, at least briefly):
not by any means
Reasonable audio at  times during the period 
(much of it understandable by a native speaker, 
though often battling with splash or noise):
the above passing through

not so reasonable audio, occasional words or 
phrases in splash or noise could be understood by a native speaker:
not in the slightest
>>