As temperatures plunged, the tourist attraction on the
US-Canada border gave those brave enough to venture out a sight they
will never forget
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Niagara Falls freezes as polar vortex grips North America
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The most incredible images of the American polar vortex yet show spectacular waterfall Niagara Falls frozen in time.
After temperatures plunged to a sub-arctic -52C in parts of the US, the tourist attraction on the US-Canada border gave those brave enough to venture out a sight they will never forget.
These images - taken by Reuters photographer Aaron Harris yesterday - are mostly taken from the Canadian side and show the American falls, which have a drop of 170ft on to huge rocks below.
Twenty million people a year visit the three falls - the American Falls and Bridal Veil on the US side and Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side - which on a normal day boast a volume of more than 500,000 litres of water a second.
The combined falls form the highest flow rate of any waterfall in the world.
The winter storms have whipped America into an ice cold frenzy with even Hell freezing over. 190million people have been affected.
The
polar vortex is relatively commonplace in the Arctic, but it is
extremely rare for it to move southwards towards North America.
Relief is on the way, as temperatures are expected to climb this weekend.
For more shocking pictures on the devastating Winter Storm Hercules click here.
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Barcroft
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20 worst storm pictures from the US
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No, Niagara Falls is not “frozen solid”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/pictures-niagara-falls-frozen-polar-3003781
The U.S. side of the Niagara Falls on January 8, 2014. (REUTERS/Aaron Harris)
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.
https://vine.co/v/hYQ97YU5vw3
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.
RELATED: The unintentional beauty of the polar vortex
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/01/09/no-niagara-falls-is-not-frozen-solid/
This is CNN and this is CNN’s definition of a blizzard
A pedestrian crosses Delaware Avenue amid heavy snow on Tuesday. Derek Gee/Buffalo News
on January 9, 2014 - 12:01 AM
By now, we all know that this week’s weather event was a blizzard, a rare event in Western New York.
What we didn’t know was that a blizzard in Buffalo is different from a blizzard anywhere else.
That was the information that viewers of “Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees” learned Tuesday evening.
This week’s blizzard was the first in Western New York in more than 20 years, which led to an interesting exchange between Cooper and correspondent Pamela Brown.
Cooper: “Now I understand Buffalo is actually under the first blizzard warning since ’93. It snows up there all the time, though, doesn’t it?”
Brown: “Yes, that’s right, Anderson. In fact, this is the fourth blizzard warning here in Buffalo in the past four decades. It’s surprising when you consider how used Buffalo residents are to dealing with this winter weather. And that’s a big reason why there have only been four blizzard warnings here. There’s a certain threshold that has to be met here in Buffalo for to it make the cut to be considered a blizzard warning. Normally there’s a combination of factors. The gusting winds and the snow, the heavy snow, in order for a storm to be considered a blizzard.
“In other cities it’s much easier to meet that threshold. Buffalo it’s very different because of how – used to this weather they are. That just tells you how serious and how dangerous this blizzard is here right now.”
To sum up, according to CNN, there are “blizzards,” and then there are “Buffalo blizzards.”
For the record, a blizzard is categorized as such based on sustained winds of 35 mph or more and visibility of a quarter-mile or less.
http://www.buffalonews.com/gusto/television/this-is-cnn-and-this-is-cnns-definition-of-a-blizzard-20140109
What we didn’t know was that a blizzard in Buffalo is different from a blizzard anywhere else.
That was the information that viewers of “Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees” learned Tuesday evening.
This week’s blizzard was the first in Western New York in more than 20 years, which led to an interesting exchange between Cooper and correspondent Pamela Brown.
Cooper: “Now I understand Buffalo is actually under the first blizzard warning since ’93. It snows up there all the time, though, doesn’t it?”
Brown: “Yes, that’s right, Anderson. In fact, this is the fourth blizzard warning here in Buffalo in the past four decades. It’s surprising when you consider how used Buffalo residents are to dealing with this winter weather. And that’s a big reason why there have only been four blizzard warnings here. There’s a certain threshold that has to be met here in Buffalo for to it make the cut to be considered a blizzard warning. Normally there’s a combination of factors. The gusting winds and the snow, the heavy snow, in order for a storm to be considered a blizzard.
“In other cities it’s much easier to meet that threshold. Buffalo it’s very different because of how – used to this weather they are. That just tells you how serious and how dangerous this blizzard is here right now.”
To sum up, according to CNN, there are “blizzards,” and then there are “Buffalo blizzards.”
For the record, a blizzard is categorized as such based on sustained winds of 35 mph or more and visibility of a quarter-mile or less.
http://www.buffalonews.com/gusto/television/this-is-cnn-and-this-is-cnns-definition-of-a-blizzard-20140109
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