1911 Niagara Falls, New York

[anselmo1]

I always wondered how cold it had to be for Niagara Falls to freeze up. I always wondered how long it took the falls to freeze and at what temperature?

 

[Tony in Tarzana]

Slowly I turned around...

Wow. Amazing picture.

 

[Chanfan]

They are great pictures. It's my understanding they aren't quite certain of the exact date, but one does get the idea of the period by the clothes.

More info here:
http://www.snopes.com/photos/natural/niagarafalls.asp

 

[Fletch]

Yet more info here

http://www.iaw.com/~falls/faq.html#what

There seems to be a legend going around to the effect that "The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls completely froze over."

The above site says that one of the 2 falls never has frozen, but the other, with much less waterflow, has iced up 4 times over the years. But not in 1932.

 

[happyfilmluvguy]

I'd like to be one of those folks in the photo!

 

[anselmo1]

Niagara Falls 1969

This is how Niagara Falls looked when the Army Corps of Engineers shut off the American Falls in 1969 to clean up rock and debris.

 

[pigeon toe]

All of those photos are totally amazing. I would have loved to have seen it frozen.

 

[LadyStardust]

Very eerie and astounding! I watched a documentary on the Falls that covered both events, it was very interesting!

 

[HadleyH]

I always wondered how cold it had to be for Niagara Falls to freeze up. [/IMG]

Very cold.
I wouldn't know the exact temperature, but I imagine pretty cold.
Great pictures by the way!

 

[Tourbillion]

My dad grew up in Niagara falls so he remembers some of the freezes. I've been on every Niagara tour possible, Maid of the Mist, the caves behind the falls, over the falls in a helicopter, boat tour of the whirlpool, etc.

My dad used to play there as a kid, apparently he is lucky to be alive on several counts, there wasn't as much safety then.

That is probably the 1848 stoppage. I found this online:

On six reported occasions (1883, 1896, 1904, 1909, 1936 and 1947), the water flow over American Falls has been totally blocked by ice and ceased to fall. But only once has this happened to the much larger Horseshoe Falls (originally known as the Canadian Falls): March 29-31, 1848, the Days Niagara Falls Went Dry.

Here's what happened:

A strong but slow-moving storm system passing through Lake Erie basin was the most logical suspect in the water flow stoppage. Weather reports indicated that for several days prior to March 29, strong easterly winds drove ice blocks and pack ice back into the open lake waters. Then on the 29th, the winds suddenly reversed direction, coming strongly from the west and southwest, and drove the lake ice rapidly toward the neck of Lake Erie and the Niagara River entrance, somewhere between Fort Erie and Buffalo. The combined force of wind, current and waves jammed the ice blocks together in such a manner that a completely impenetrable ice dam was formed. Thus, waters no longer flowed through the Niagara River toward Lake Ontario and the Niagara Falls.

It does get awfully cold in Niagara Falls in the winter though, brr!

 

[Becky]

long hard cold

I grew up in Niagara Falls. During the blizzard of '77 we received temperatures (windchill) of -40F To freeze this amount of water would require a sustained period of artic cold air, for at least 2 to 3 weeks. ~Becky~

 

[Cherriexo]

I went to Niagara years ago,and loved it.

There's this kinda cheesey 4 level museum that you can see all the different things people used to go over the Falls.The rusted ship that still remains there creeps me out.

I would've loved to have been there for the freezes.