River ice

[Dan Robinson]

Thanks the the relentless arctic air, the Kanawha River finally froze this morning, all the way across in many spots. I set out looking for barges breaking through the ice, but found something else that ranks high up as one of the coolest things I've seen this winter. I went down to the outside of a sharp bend in the river near St. Albans, WV. The ice, moving with the current as one giant slab about 4/5 of the way across the river, was pushing into the outside bank. The result was a mesmerizing 'miniature plate tectonics' display as the huge ice slab's edge fractured and piled up against ice on the riverbank. Finally, as I was watching and recording, the entire slab - stretching as far as I could see up and down the river - ground to a total stop!

Video (16MB):
http://wvlightning.com/2007/riverice2007.wmv

 

[tom hanlon]

Ice on the Kanawha !

Nice pics. I love Ice as scenery.

Some of my favorite scenes are when you have a high water freeze event and then the waters recede leaving plates of ice in the riverside brush.


Also I have been on a pier as Lake Erie had just gotten 1/8 to 1/4 inch of ice on a glassy smooth surface. Then the wind broke all of that up and with 1-2 foot waves the whole surface of the lake was making this insane "tinkling" sound, crazy to see and hear.

Nice pics, good catch.

--
Tom

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

My concerns have been realized, the conditions have lead to significant jamming and flooding on the Platte River. In fact my Grandma who lives on a lake back in the timber on a dead end road had to vacate to my parents place because water had reached the Dam. As long as the Dam holds her house will be spared, but should the dam take too much of a beating from the ice, a break could occur and would be very bad, it happened a several years ago and completely altered the landscape and took out trees and created new small lakes. Hopping that the river is able to flush its self clean with out any major jamming before this weekend’s rain and snow arrives. If conditions still allow I might make it up there tommorow and walk down the dike just to make sure its holding up and also take some pictures.