Abstract
FROM the office of the High Commissioner for Canada a special bulletin has been received dealing with the freezing of Niagara Falls. This was prepared by Mr. G. H. Wood, assistant engineer, Dominion Water Power and Hydrometric Bureau, Department of the Interior, Ottawa, and states that the American falls became completely frozen over on January 25 this year and remained so at least up to the date of the bulletin (February 20), a length of time never previously recorded. Freezing was rare in the early days before the diversion of much of the water for power purposes and the presentlow cycle of discharge from Lake Erie, and did not occur once between the earliest recorded occasion in 1848 and the next occasion on February 14, 1909. It appears that there isno record of the Canadian falls (Horseshoe falls) having ever been frozen over; but the channel leading to the American falls is shallow and carries only five per cent of the flow over the cascades, and, becoming obstructed by ice at times, may then be frozen over. Such an event is always duetoice jams at the head of Goat Island, which occur when thickice on Lake Erie is broken up by strong southwesterly gales, and large quantities of floe ice are driven into the Niagara River and carried downstream. The level of Lake Erie isstated to be close to its minimum recorded level, and the discharge of the river very low in consequence. The comparative frequency with which the falls have been frozen over (for a short time) since 1922 is clearly, therefore, no evidence for an increase in the average severity of American winters; in fact, temperature records show just the reverse in spite of the occurrence of a few isolated spells of unusual cold within the last few years.
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Freezing of Niagara Falls. Nature 137, 697–698 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/137697e0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/137697e0