Niagara Falls frozen? - Or just partly?

[Gawan]

Since yesterday reports making it's round that the Niagara Falls are frozen. And I'm not sure what really is up, so I'm trying to bring together some things here:

_http://gothamist.com/2014/01/08/photo_niagara_falls_has_frozen_over.php

At the beginning it still had a false title and then it was changed and corrected that the pictures belong to 2011. So I did try to check some data yesterday, cause I was skeptical myself.

The last time they were completely frozen happened in 1848 for some hours according to the link below and a picture from 1911.

_http://www.niagarafallslive.com/facts_about_niagara_falls.htm

Today new reports were released some news sites stated again "are frozen" some others "partly frozen" and some did imo normalizing, it happens every year that it partly gets frozen.

You’ve probably seen, and perhaps marveled at, these pictures of a frozen-solid Niagara Falls. Unfortunately, like everything of beauty and wonder on the Internet, these are either totally misleading or outright false.

Here’s the thing: Niagara Falls gets cold every year. (I know, as I’m from there.) The average temperature in Niagara Falls in January is between 16 and 32 degrees, not terribly different from the 19 to 23 degrees expected today. Naturally, it being that cold, ice floes and giant icicles form on the falls, and in the Niagara River above and below the falls, every year. The ice at the base of the falls, called the ice bridge, sometimes gets so thick that people used to build concession stands and walk to Canada on it. It’s nothing out of the ordinary. It is not, to put it bluntly, big polar vortex news. Case in point: Many of the pictures going around today are, in fact, from several years ago. Here’s a (really beautiful) description of what the falls look like in winter, from a 2004 story in The Buffalo News:

In the early winter, the rime on the grass starts forming as delicate, lacy feathers. The mist coats the trees nearest the brink with frozen glaze, bending some nearly to the ground, said [Niagara Falls historian Paul] Gromosiak. One brutally cold February day, Gromosiak said, he crossed the bridge to Goat Island and headed for Terrapin Point. ‘All the trees were bowing to the river, with the weight of the ice on their branches. And I looked up at the sky and saw this vortex of ring-billed gulls, thousands of them … The natural scene overwhelms the artificial scene around it. Especially on a day when the ice bridge is massive and you have huge mounds of ice below the American Falls, ice on all the trees, the sun shining and the rainbow in the sky. It diminishes even those skyscrapers on the Canadian side.’

Don’t get me wrong — the so-called polar vortex was abnormal, even for regions that typically see harsh winter weather. While Niagara Falls hasn’t frozen over, for instance, unprecedented ice jams on the river above the falls caused minor flooding in the area. But that still doesn’t compare to the Blizzard of ’77, as one local reporter put it, and it certainly doesn’t compare to the giant ice floes that almost stopped the falls one winter in the 19th century. In the grand scheme of Western New York weather, this is really no big deal. Look how chill this guy is about it.

As for the claim that the falls could “freeze over,” that’s just sort of ridiculous. Nearly 76,000 gallons of water flow over the American and Bridal Veil falls every second, at a speed of 32 feet per second. It would take a lot more than a few days of cold weather to completely shut that off.

_http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/01/09/no-niagara-falls-is-not-frozen-solid/?tid=hpModule_d39b60e8-8691-11e2-9d71-f0feafdd1394

While the polar vortex and record-breaking low temperatures are causing all sorts of environmental phenomena, in this case, the cold may have gone to our heads.

Photographs of Niagara Falls have circulating the internet with captions claiming that the historic site is completely frozen over. In reality, Niagara Falls is not frozen over, as you can see from the live webcam.

The falls are partially covered in ice, which happens every year. In fact, some of the photographs gaining popularity online, like this one, are not even from 2014.

_http://www.cbsnews.com/news/niagara-falls-frozen-not-so-fast/


So far there is almost no video available and most often are just stills in video form

One that gets close to be a video, but I'm not sure if it is real:

http://<iframe width="640" height="...ge" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

And the ones with stills, which seems to originate from cctvnews:

http://<iframe width="640" height="...ge" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

And here are the pictures that are making it's round at the moment:

The record-breaking chill across the U.S. and Canada was so frigid it literally stopped Niagara Falls in its tracks.
A collection of spectacular photographs have shown the moment the U.S. side of the famous falls froze before they could reach the bottom.
Thankfully, the freezing air and 'polar vortex' that turned the cascading water to ice - and affected about 240 million people in the U.S. and southern Canada - will depart during the second half of this week, and a far-reaching January thaw will begin, according to AccuWeather.com.

_http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2536278/Spectacular-photographs-moment-Niagara-Falls-FROZE-polar-vortex-saw-record-breaking-temperatures-tourist-mecca.html

What did make me suspicious from the beginning is that something similar happened last year in december:

To the snow in Egypt there seem to make some fake pictures making its round, one that the pyramids are under snow and one that the sphinx is covered in snow too:

_http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/cairo-snow-sphinx-picture-internet-2925810
_http://www.dailygrail.com/Media-Meanderings/2013/12/Pyramids-Giza-Winter-Wonderland

Nonetheless it did snow for real in Egypt.

So I don't know if these are just coincidences or deliberately spread false information to make fun of it? Because both picture "sets" from Egypt and the frozen Niagara Falls did make it's round from twitter. And as I see it, most often people who are not believing the global warming thing are likely to post it on FB and duplicate it which then could be turned around that they are spreading false information.

 

[Keit]

Since yesterday reports making it's round that the Niagara Falls are frozen. And I'm not sure what really is up, so I'm trying to bring together some things here:

_http://gothamist.com/2014/01/08/photo_niagara_falls_has_frozen_over.php

Yeah, I heard the same on the Russian news channel. That both Niagara Falls and Hudson river in NY are frozen, and some ships needed to be towed. But then, it could be easily exaggerated, because they didn't show any new pictures of the Niagara Falls, only the historical ones. Also, during the same news report they told about the strongest for the past 10 years CME hitting Earth, and that it could cause equipment and health problems, while Spaceweather site says the following:

As predicted, a CME hit Earth's magnetic field on Jan. 9th (20:00 UT). The impact was weaker than expected, however, and it failed to produce widespread geomagnetic storms. Nevertheless, some beautiful auroras appeared around the Arctic Circle.

So, don't know.

 

[SeekinTruth]

FWIW, the Hudson River used to freeze around NYC most winters for most of the winter in the mid and late 70's. The time when many mainstream media were speculating about the next ice age.

 

[seek10]

some pictures from weather.com

http://www.weather.com/news/weather-winter/arctic-outbreak-most-amazing-things-photos-video-20140109?pageno=7

http://www.weather.com/news/weather-winter/arctic-outbreak-most-amazing-things-photos-video-20140109
http://www.weather.com/news/weather-winter/arctic-outbreak-most-amazing-things-photos-video-20140109?pageno=4
http://www.weather.com/news/weather-winter/arctic-outbreak-most-amazing-things-photos-video-20140109?pageno=6
http://www.weather.com/news/weather-winter/arctic-outbreak-most-amazing-things-photos-video-20140109?pageno=12
http://www.weather.com/news/weather-winter/arctic-outbreak-most-amazing-things-photos-video-20140109?pageno=13

Ice balls in lake michigan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iupm6VHKoQU

 

[Niall]

Yep, the Falls partly froze:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/jan/12/niagara-falls-frozen-tourists-flock-icy-spectacle-video

 

[l apprenti de forgeron]

It is really impressive. I hope that many people take notice of their possible meaning. Thanks for sharing, people!

 

[Nook]

Niagara falls partially freezing was indeed very impressive.

Though I'd like to report from the scene, that the Hudson wasn't frozen due to the polar vortex.
Even the East river (the smaller one) was fine, it had huge chunks and discs of ice but it wasn't frozen.

 

[Anthony]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2538701/Great-FALL-China-Ice-cool-climbers-brave-bitterly-cold-temperatures-scale-Beijing-WATERFALL.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

 

[Gawan]

Yep, the Falls partly froze:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/jan/12/niagara-falls-frozen-tourists-flock-icy-spectacle-video

some pictures from weather.com

http://www.weather.com/news/weather-winter/arctic-outbreak-most-amazing-things-photos-video-20140109?pageno=7

http://www.weather.com/news/weather-winter/arctic-outbreak-most-amazing-things-photos-video-20140109
http://www.weather.com/news/weather-winter/arctic-outbreak-most-amazing-things-photos-video-20140109?pageno=4
http://www.weather.com/news/weather-winter/arctic-outbreak-most-amazing-things-photos-video-20140109?pageno=6
http://www.weather.com/news/weather-winter/arctic-outbreak-most-amazing-things-photos-video-20140109?pageno=12
http://www.weather.com/news/weather-winter/arctic-outbreak-most-amazing-things-photos-video-20140109?pageno=13

Ice balls in lake michigan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iupm6VHKoQU

Thanks for the links. And this video looks also impressive imo:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25679545

And nonetheless breathtaking that the cascades partly froze.