Which waterfall stopped for more than 30 hours in 1848 due to ice jams in the river?
On March 29th 1848, papers reported that Niagara Falls ran dry. During a weather related occurrence, a south-west gale blowing off of Lake Erie caused ice to jam and dam up at the mouth of the Niagara River causing the water flow to be severely restricted. This caused the water over the Horseshoe Falls and American Falls to be reduced to a trickle for approximately thirty (30) to forty (40) hours. The roar of the Falls fell silent.
In latter part of March 1848, a gale force wind had been blowing from the south-west for several days before the ice dam occurred. On March 29th 1848, the weather was clear with an air temperature of 7º Celsius (46º Fahrenheit). The wind was blowing very strongly from the south-west. This wind which was blowing over the entire fetch of Lake Erie combined with massive amounts of Lake ice which was in turn pushed into the mouth of the Niagara River. So much ice that the River could not handle it all so it began to jam up at the entrance. The jam became so dense with hundreds of thousands of tons of ice, that it became a water dam which severely restricted the water.
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