Ice Jam!

A short post today.

Yesterday (Wednesday) morning I headed out to Port Lambton and was surprised to see extensive flooding.  Overnight, the ice jammed in the St. Clair River and created a back-up of water.  Tuesday afternoon we had noticed the water level was continually rising, but never thought it would get this high.

Early last summer we were fighting high water levels and this fall the levels went down considerably.  Much more than the previous year in fact.  We thought high water woes were over!

We had virtually no ice until a week ago due to the mild winter.  Where all this ice came from is mind-boggling!  They had been talking about how ice-free the Great Lakes had been till this point, and in fact probably one of the most ice-free winters ever.

I headed to the shop and found that we were flooded, not surprisingly.  Up to 10" were in the shop....worse than the big surge early last summer!

With the cold weather, the standing water froze overnight creating a lot of problems.

Obviously no work was getting done on Wednesday, so I headed upriver.  Some places had the water over the St. Clair Parkway.

Here is a view of the Sombra dock.

The old ferry dock was sold last summer and is being used by a local dock and seawall contractor.  As usual, there is open water south of the old causeway, so ducks are congregating there, in including the the hybrid Redhead X Ring-necked which we see here every winter.

There are few open spots in the river, but waterfowl is taking advantage.

Levels had dropped considerably today, but the danger still exists.  Several ice breakers were at work today.  Port Lambton looked like a busy weekend in July today with cars lined up and people out walking watching the situation.

If it is not one thing, it is another!